


He's So Nice

by FFFantasies



Series: Lyrics curling like Leaves [1]
Category: Filthy Frank Show - Fandom
Genre: M/M, here we go again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 01:20:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 27,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9575498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FFFantasies/pseuds/FFFantasies
Summary: They're both; awkward, lonely, mean, sad. Kohe wants to be less, he wants a friend and he thinks Frank needs one too.





	1. My Name is Kohe

[They say he’s a weaker shadow falling between the brilliance of a greater man, I don’t think it works like that. He says he’s the real person but I don’t think real and fake are words you can use for people.](http://vocaroo.com/i/s0oyG7tEoxL1)

He doesn’t have many friends, any friends, but I want to be there for him. We’re alike, I think, we’re both running from things we’ve done. He’s running from the lie he lived, I’m running from a crime I committed but there’s time to make friends, yes?

He calls himself Fake, he says he’s mean and there’s blood staining his shirt but all I see is a sad person. He wears those shades because he gave his eyes to a greater being, a dark being who betrayed him and I can understand that, betrayal, trusting people you shouldn’t have. I wonder if he’ll ever realise how much of this was his fault and how much of it wasn’t.

I want to be his friend because he’s lonely and so am I. Everyone he knows thinks he’s dead and it’s the same for me, the only difference is that I faked my death, it’s a small enough difference to overlook. Maybe we can make our way back to where we started together, it’d be nice to talk to someone again.

“My name is Kohe,” I tell him and he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t say much, maybe less than me, I don’t take offence. I’ve seen the way he stares at nothing, stares off into the middle distance and I know he’s thinking about the death he survived. I wonder if he’d let me wash his shirt, or get him a new one, he doesn’t have to suffer. I wonder if he knows.

“It’s Filthy Frank, motherfucker,” he answers after too much time past but he doesn’t notice and I don’t say anything. I know who he is, I’ve followed him even if he didn’t notice. He’s nice, when he isn’t pretending at being someone else, when he isn’t fighting someone else’s war. I know he’s still mean, still awkward, but he’s nice and I’m awkward too, I can be mean too.

He doesn’t say anything else, and I’ve lost the words I wanted to use. The silence is nice though, not tense, maybe it’s because neither of us expect anything, maybe it’s the beginning of a beautiful friendship. I wonder if he knows?

* * *

 

He’s done some shit, I know he has, because normal people don’t jump when the cops roll by, they don’t shrink into their hoodies. He’s quiet, one of the quietest people I know, and that might just be how he is but I don’t think so.

He said his name was Kohe but he has a different one on his driver’s licence. He said he was from Japan but his birth certificate isn’t from there, sometimes I believe what he tells me and sometimes I think he’s a fucking liar. He’s in hiding, that much I know, even if he refuses to tell me who he’s hiding from or why he’s hiding with me. Maybe he thinks I could protect him if-when shit hits the fan, he’s wrong, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he’s just lonely.

Sometimes he’ll ask questions, stupid shit like my favourite food or what I like to do in my spare time. He stopped after I couldn’t answer because I didn’t know, how much of who I am is actually me? How much of who I am is the lie I lived for my false God? How much of me is left? I don’t know, I don’t know, but Kohe doesn’t push, I like that about him.

Sometimes he doesn’t have to ask questions though, sometimes the fucker just seems to know shit and it’s unnerving. Sometimes he doesn’t have to ask because he already knows and it’s a relief. He doesn’t ask why I wear cheap sunglasses, why I always wear cheap sunglasses. He doesn’t ask why I still wear this blood stained shirt even though it’s been washed enough to get most of the stains out. I don’t think the answer he has is the correct one but then again I don’t have any answers that could contradict him so I don’t say anything.

I wonder about him though, what the fuck he did to be on the run, how the fuck he can make fake identities for himself. He operates in a different world from me, he needs to play by the laws because he can’t bend them, he can’t jump between them. I try to ask, I’ve tried, but every time I freeze up. I see the faraway look in his eyes and I see the scars on his palms, the deliberate slashes across the meat of his hands and I stop myself.

Kohe’s got his secrets and his questions and his answers, he’s entitled to them even if they’re fucking annoying and enticing to figure out. He lets me be though, he doesn’t ask about Chin Chin, about how I survived so I don’t ask about what or who he’s running from. It’s common courtesy, I think, I don’t know much about these things but someday I’ll find out. Someday I’ll know who Kohe was and he’ll know who I am, maybe I’ll even show him what I lost but for now, baby steps.

“Hey Kohe, old Nickelodeon is on, come check out these fire bitches!”

 

 


	2. The Gifts We Give

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gloves and glasses, it's not romantic but they aren't a couple.

[Frank is not a stupid man, he may act ignorant and arrogant but he’s far from stupid, I think I forget that sometimes](http://vocaroo.com/i/s01BIXMVJSNc). He notices more than I realise he does and it catches me off guard but as arrogant as he is, he knows when to back off, I appreciate that about him.

He knows not to ask about my hands, even when it’s pouring rain and I can’t take them out of my pockets, he doesn’t ask. Perhaps he knows what happened, as vaguely as I know about his eyes, perhaps he knows what I lost as I left the same way I know what he gave up going in. Such a strange connection between us, giving up pieces of ourselves for what we thought we wanted.

…did I really want to leave? Was it worth it? Is it worth living my life running, waiting for an old man to die or be overthrown. Was it worth giving up my music to live in a city so far from home with a man I know so little about? I don’t know, I don’t think the questions I’m asking myself have answers or maybe they do and I don’t want to hear them.

Frank is not a stupid man but he does notice things so when he drops his bags on the table, I’m startled, but when he throws the gloves at me, I’m taken aback. I’ve never asked where he makes his money, how he makes it, if what he does even has any bearing on this realm but now the fatal curiosity burns to life. I want to know, I need to know, I want so much from this strange man who thinks nothing of himself.

“ _Frank_ ,” I could say, “ _Frank where do you go some days? Why do you stay with me? What about me interests you_?”

I could ask him anything, everything, I could be persuasive. I could catch him off guard by shrugging off my shyness like a snake sheds its skin and what an apt description that is. He thinks I’m the meek mouse, he thinks I want him to protect me but I never needed him to, I never asked him to. What would he say if I betrayed myself as the snake? What would he do if I slid into his lap, if I pinned him to a chair and cradled his face so gently in my scarred hands?

“ _What would happen if we kissed_?” I could ask.

“W-what are these?” I ask instead and the stammer is still there, no matter how hard I try to stamp it out, no matter how much I’ve done and seen and lived through, the stammer is still there. It helps with the shy persona, it helps when I need to be unassuming and unnoticed, it helps when I need to forget. Some days I hate it, some days I am grateful for what it lets me be.

“Gloves, you’re always asking me to get you shit because your hands are cold so I got those,” Frank explains, shrugging like it’s nothing to get someone presents. I bite my tongue, I bite so hard I taste copper and I stop myself from asking his terms, from asking what he wants in return.

It never leaves you, the need for balance, the need to pay off debts and favours and presents. What would Frank say if I asked him right now? Would he piece it all together? Would he realise what my mutilated hands mean, what my infinite knowledge of the underworld alludes to? Would he leave once he held the whole picture in his hands?

“Th-thank you,” I say instead because I am Kohe, right now I am Kohe and Kohe is the only person that matters. Frank knows Kohe, maybe even trusts the quiet man with the hundred yard stare and the ear for music even if he says he doesn’t play. I wonder if he would care, Frank has done some horrible things as well, all in the name of his dark God. Maybe he has the deniability of honouring a deity, after all, acolytes only ever follow the word of their divine.

I followed the words of a man, a powerful man but a mortal man, what excuse do I have?

He doesn’t say anything else though, Frank, he leaves me in the kitchen and heads to his bedroom. The kitchen is the warmest room in our tiny two bedroom apartment and the warmth is the only thing that can ease the ache in my hands when the days turn cold and rainy like this. I wait until I know he won’t come back out before I reach for the gloves, jaw tightening at the sight of my scarred hands, as always.

The first knuckle of the left pinkie was traditional, a show of obedience and loyalty and the need for your oyabun to protect you now. I had made a gift of both hands, the tips of both little fingers, and slid the blade across my palms for good measure, and to bloody their blade just a little more.

My hands shake as I lift the gloves, they’re well made, black leather with tight stitching and the insides are very soft. I slide them onto my hands, these once-musician’s hands of mine and when I spread my fingers wide, the missing pieces are unnoticeable. I wonder if Frank chose these intentionally, I wonder if he tested them somehow to see how they would look. I wonder what I can do to thank him because even though I don’t _have_ to, I still **_want_** to.

It’s nice to be able to want things.

* * *

 

The gloves were…I want to say spur of the moment but that’d be a fucking lie and even I’m not that big of a liar. I don’t want to think about what they mean though because it’s normal for…friends to get each other custom made gloves right? It’s normal to watch your roommate so much and so often and so close that you notice the way their hands shake when the temperature drops and the weather changes. And it’s completely normal to want to smooth out their knitted eyebrows with a gentle finger and a lame joke right?

I’m pretty sure it’s normal but then what the fuck do I know? I’ve never had any real friends before, not ones who would drop a subject when I stopped answering, not one who avoided shit altogether. I don’t know if a friend is what I am to Kohe because it doesn’t sound strong enough but it’s the only word I have.

He’s sad, in a strange way, not sad like he missed his favourite tv show but sad like he lost his entire family and maybe he has. What do I know? I know he’s Japanese, he speaks the language too fluently to not be, and I know he can forge official documents like a motherfucker and I know he’s got a thing for music. He thinks I don’t notice the way he sways when he’s listening to his music or that I can’t hear when he turns it up loud enough but I do. Maybe someone else wouldn’t have caught the music, the violin pieces that sound sad like the instruments themselves are crying, but if Kohe wanted a normal roommate he would’ve fucking got one.

I leave him alone all night, let him do whatever it is he does and try not to think about the way his mouth fell open when I tossed the gloves at him. He’s handsome as hell and I wonder if he realises sometimes, he’s always hiding his face somehow but I know what he looks like; he’s got some of the prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen even if I can’t see the colour. I wonder what colour they are sometimes, when I can’t sleep because the phantom pain of broken ribs puncturing my lungs is too much or the ghost of a heart attack snatches me up.

I think about what colour would suit him; green, brown, blue, black. I think brown would look best on him, a nice deep brown like the colour of tree bark when the sunlight hits it just right so you see all the veins of hazel and chestnut show up against the flat umber. I think his eyes would look like home if I could see them properly, I think his eyes look like home even though I can’t.

Sometimes I think about showing him, I think about looping an arm around his waist and pulling him into me until we’re chest to chest. I think about the expression on his face when I lean in for a kiss, waiting for him to push me away, waiting for him to say he doesn’t want this and him not doing a single thing. I think about how soft his lips would feel, maybe I’d taste the cigarettes he smokes and thinks I don’t know about, maybe he wouldn’t.

I’d show him after we broke the kiss, I’d whip off the stupid glasses I have to wear now and show him what I gave to an entity that never proved himself to me. I’d show him the price of my loyalty and maybe he’d tell me about his past, just something, one little nugget of understanding. Even if he didn’t tell me anything though, I’d tell him about lying there on the cold rooftop and waiting for my death. I’d tell him how scared I was, how much I hated Chin Chin and how much I wanted to die because nothing was worth this pain.

Maybe I’d even tell him about the panicked, frantic dreams I’d wake up from thinking I was still there. Maybe not, might not be something you told friends, even friends as close as Kohe because it was too personal or whatever, I still didn’t know how this worked. Still, the gloves had to be a step in the right direction, right?

When I opened my door and found the glasses in a ziplock bag stuck to my door, I decided that it definitely had to be a step in the right direction. I’d seen the sunglasses in Kohe’s room a few times, they were ray-bans, at least two hundred bucks and I’d never seen him wear them. I knew they had to be related to his past because who the fuck owned shit like this and didn’t do anything with it?

I wore the new shades when I strolled into the kitchen for breakfast and Kohe was wearing the gloves, neither of us said anything but words were never our strong suit. I bumped his hip when I reached past him for the milk and he smiled at me as brightly as I’d ever seen, as anyone had ever seen probably.

And here, in this tiny ass apartment wearing expensive shades and eating knock-off brand cereal with a man who barely spoke but understood a whole bunch, was something that other Frank’d never had. The other Frank had never met Kohe, probably didn’t even know the guy existed which meant at last, at least, here as something that was mine.

It was nice to have things.


	3. I love sex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I love you~

[Kohe knows he knows, Frank’s not stupid and neither is the quiet mother fucker.](http://vocaroo.com/i/s0xb0essmHY2) Kohe only sings when he thinks Frank isn’t home, or when he _wants_ Frank to think that **_he_** thinks Frank isn’t home. Or Kohe could really not know he’s there because right now he’s drunk and dancing around the kitchen like a three legged donkey, it’s kind of cute the way he avoids smashing his face in or breaking his own neck by crashing into a chair.

“Moshi, moshi, sex please!” Kohe sang, bouncing off the counter and spinning away across the tiles. This is probably the loudest he’s ever heard the guy be and it’s…well it’s different, nice different even if the dude’s singing about sex and creampies and pussy. The words are slurred, the English is a mess and most of the words end off in moans more often than actual sense but it’s…nice.

Frank stays in the shadow of the dark hallway and watches Kohe dance around and sing to himself. There are a few bottles on the table, the weirdo was probably mixing drinks again and now he was drunk off his ass dancing around like a dumbass…he was in so much trouble. Because even when he drunk dancing and singing off key about fucking, Frank still wants to pin Kohe against the table and kiss him senseless.

He wants to feel Kohe underneath him, he wants to swallow the filthy words spilling from Kohe’s lips and he wants to chase the chase of alcohol as far as he can. He wants to feel Kohe hard against his thigh, he wants to leave marks all over that pale neck, he wants to get Kohe naked under him. Frank wants to go down on the fucker, to suck his cock and eat his ass until he’s whimpering and tripping over his words, until he begs for Frank to fuck him.

Or maybe he’ll sit Kohe down on a chair and crawl into his lap. Frank could grind against him until they were both desperate, he could slip a hand in Kohe’s pants and jerk him off while humping his leg. Frank could cum just like that, from just rubbing up against Kohe and listening to all the noises the man made. Fuck, if Kohe let him, Frank would ride his dick into next week, until his muscles locked up on him and his legs felt like jelly.

“Frank-kun!” Kohe cried happily when he finally noticed Frank in the doorway and it with his words slurring like that, Frank could almost hear “Fake-kun”. He doesn’t know what to do now that he’s caught because as much as he’d love to talk this happy, smiling Kohe into his bed, he…can’t. Kohe’s, he’s, well he isn’t just Frank’s roommate, he’s Frank’s only friend and he…cares? He cares about the fucker, he thinks, he isn’t sure what that feels like but he knows taking advantage of a drunk Kohe would haunt him for the rest of his miserable life.

“You started drinking without me?” he complains instead, herding Kohe back to the table and making him sit in one of the rickety old chairs that came with the place. He digs around in the fridge while Kohe continues singing to himself and doesn’t see the way Kohe’s eyes track his every movement far too sharply. He doesn’t notice the way Kohe’s hands reach for one of the bottles and he doesn’t see when it goes sailing into the living room onto the couch. If he did, he might’ve realised the bottle only had water in it and that Kohe wasn’t close to buzzed.

“daisuki,” Kohe sings, tipping his chair so far back Frank has to grab it before it goes crashing on the floor. He tries to forget the words, he pretends he never heard them because, because, because Kohe’s drunk and has no fucking clue what he’s saying. He doesn’t hear the desperate little noise Kohe can’t stop himself form making because Frank is so much, so much of everything he wants.

Frank won’t know that Kohe set this up, filled one of his bottles with water to make it look like he’d been drinking for hours and was off his ass. He won’t know that Kohe found a song so far from anything he would’ve played so it doesn’t hurt when he starts singing it. He won’t know how much Kohe wanted to fuck him when was leaning against the wall, hair curling around his neck, lips curved in a smirk, arms crossed. He won’t know because he promptly gets so drunk he really can pretend he never heard Kohe say “I love you”.

Kohe pretends later too, that he was drunk when Frank came in and didn’t get that way when they actually started drinking. He pretends to Frank at least and then he starts planning.

* * *

Kohe gets drunk a lot, more than Frank maybe and that’s fucking saying something. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if Kohe was a sleepy drunk or a happy one, fuck he’d even take an angry drunk at this point because his dick was definitely suffering.

“Franku, Franku am I pretty enough to fuck?” Kohe whines, pawing at his shirt like a little kid or a dog or something and really all Frank’s trying to do is watch some tv. He doesn’t want a lap full of squirming, horny, drunk Kohe and he doesn’t want to have to pretend he never heard all the shit spilling out of his roommate’s mouth. Now if it was a lap of squirming, horny, **_sober_** Kohe, then it’d be a different story.

Fuck it wouldn’t have even been a story, Frank would’ve jumped the little fuck’s bones so fast his head would spin and he’d **stop**. **_Talking_**.

“You’re pretty, Franku. _You have pretty lips, I think about them wrapped around my dick sometimes_ ,” Kohe sighes, words dropping into Japanese halfway through his sentences and fuck. Somehow Kohe has this way of making the softest words sound filthy, filthy enough for the fucking show and then some. And this happens every single time, every fucking time Kohe gets drunk, he’ll come find Frank and hold onto him like some kind of octopus.

“ _I want to cum all over your pretty face, Franku. Or, I know! You could fuck **my** face Franku, you could cum down my throat, make me swallow all of it_ ,” Kohe whispers and even if his words are a little slurred, his voice is still husky and Frank’s dick is very interested. He wants to fuck Kohe’s mouth now, he wants to shut Kohe up with his cock and watch his maybe-brown eyes tear up when Frank’s too rough and makes him choke on his cock. He wants to see Kohe’s mouth hanging open as he pants, Frank wants to see a drop of his own cum caught at the corner of Kohe’s mouth.

But fuck, he also wants to tease Kohe. He wants to kiss the fuck’s cock and tongue the slit and play with his balls until he can’t help himself. He wants to gag on Kohe’s dick, he wants to feel the heft of it heavy in his mouth, he wants to taste salty precum smearing across his tongue and he wants the sweet ache that comes from keeping his jaw open like that for so long.

“ _I want to ride your dick too, I want to fuck myself on your cock and I want to feel your hot cum filling up my little boy pussy_ ,” Kohe murmurs sleepily and Frank doesn’t even breathe. Kohe’s head is on his shoulder and there’s an arm wrapped around his chest in a hug, he can’t move. Well he can but then he’d be the biggest asshole in the world, he can’t move and wake Kohe up, not possible.

But…he really needs to cum. He needs to lock himself in the bathroom and bite his shirt to keep himself quiet and he needs to beat one off right now. He also needs to stop thinking about a naked Kohe kneeling over his crotch, about how the sweat would glisten on his skin and how his hair would fall in his eyes and he’d look so shy and quiet up until he sunk down on Frank’s cock.

God he’s so fucked, and not even in the good way.


	4. I want you by my side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So I'll never feel alone, again.

[Their schedules are far from uniform, some days Kohe won’t leave the apartment until it’s dark outside and there’s no chance of anyone spotting him on the fire escape. ](http://vocaroo.com/i/s0TOMSATreSB)Sometimes Frank will disappear for days without a single word and come back with enough groceries to feed a small army. Neither of them ask the other about it, not because they can’t but because they don’t want to. Neither of them really want to talk about what they disappear and do.  
  
Frank’s barely been in the apartment for five minutes before Kohe’s coming in from the fire escape. Frank notices the bulge of something in a hoody pocket but doesn’t comment, he knows the shape good enough anyway.  
  
Kohe never says a word when he gets back at night, he usually just disappears into his bedroom to pass out for the next ten hours but not this time. Neither of them can say what’s different this time, Kohe’s seen Frank leaning against the counter smoking a cigarette dozens of times.  
  
Every other time Kohe would just shrug past his roommate and Frank would enjoy his smoke in peace. Tonight, Kohe’s full of that restless energy that never seems to die down, even when he’s sitting perfectly still it’s there just under the surface.  
  
Tonight Kohe steals the cigarette from between Frank’s lax fingers and slips it between his own lips. The red end of the cigarette is the only thing that moves as Kohe takes a hard pull. Frank feels the breath catch in his throat but he can’t say why, he doesn’t say anything.  
  
Kohe enjoys the taste of nicotine, feels it coat his lungs practically and he holds the breath as long as he can. He hasn’t had a smoke in too long and he’s not addicted but they help his nerves. His shot nerves that have his hands shaking and his pulse pounding away under his too thin skin.  
  
When he finally breathes, the smoke billows in front of his face and makes everything hazy. Frank still has no idea what to say when Kohe holds the cig out for him to take, he can’t see anything beyond the should-be-brown eyes behind the maybe-its-blue smoke. He wants to take the cig and take a drag of his own, and he wants to press his lips to Kohe’s and he wants to breathe the smoke into the other man’s mouth. He wants to taste Kohe and the smoke and feel something real.  
  
Neither of them move and the red cherry is the only thing that moves, burning away at the end of the cigarette. Kohe’s hands shake and they ache even though it isn’t cold enough for that. Frank stares and wonders what colour the smoke really is, what colour Kohe’s eyes are, wonders what it would be like to actually see again.  
  
Neither of them say a word as Frank takes the cig back and Kohe walks off to his room on unsteady feet. Frank wants to stop him, to grab him by the hand and twirl him into something close to a dance. He wants to breathe in nicotine and feel his heart race.  
  
Kohe doesn’t stop but he moves so slow, like molasses. He wants to stay in the kitchen with Frank, he wants to share the rest of the cigarette, the rest of the pack. He wants to sit up on the counter with Frank, feel their thighs press against each other, he wants to feel the warmth he knows will stop the shaking.  
  
Neither of them make a move even if they want to, even if they should, they can’t.


	5. Doomed to repeat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The past, the past he means. He should've known it would come back to haunt him.

[He came for me, why am I surprised?](http://vocaroo.com/i/s1kHEntysf6I) I should’ve seen it fucking coming, right? No one’ll be safe from his fucking war because he wants to own everything and I can’t leave, not after what I’ve done for him.

I can’t see straight, ha, when was the last time I could actually **_see_**? I hold my hand in front my face and it’s a blur of shadows, I let my head loll back against the cabinets and the ceiling is a swirling, writhing mass. He came for me.

He came here, to this apartment, and he asked me to join him again. He looked different than I remember, he looked darker, sharper, more powerful. I wonder if the Real Frank knows just who this black fucker knows, what servants Chin Chin has. He had me, a shadow of the Real Frank, his perfect Fake.

“ _Come back with me, Fake_ ,” he’d asked me and the bile was sour in my throat. I couldn’t speak because there he was, after months and months where he didn’t even know if my body had gotten a proper burial. There he was trying to get me to go with him again, go to my death again after he hadn’t even taken me away from the enemy’s rooftop.

“ _I know how to defeat Francis of the Filth and when I do, we can rule this omniverse_.”

I’d vomited, puked right into the kitchen sink at least, because fuck, _fuck_ , **_fuck_**. Those words were so familiar, how many times had he told me that? How many times had I sacrificed to him, summoned him, worshipped him and all I ever got in return were those words? I had never wanted to rule the omniverse but he made it seem so good, all the riches, all the bitches, all the power. Chin Chin made his crazy delusions sound like the best thing in the world, the easiest thing to get and he’d played me like a fucking fool.

“ _What’s wrong Fake? Don’t you want revenge on those fuckers? The ones who put you in this shitty apartment with that retard_?”

And I hadn’t been able to stop heaving into the sink, my hands had shook so hard and I couldn’t forget the feeling of the rooftop rubbing my cheek raw. I couldn’t forget how every breath had hurt to take or how my own heart had betrayed me, I couldn’t forget the pain, the panic, the fear, the death. I heaved until there was nothing in my stomach, until my throat was raw from the acid and I was spitting blood between dry heaves.

“ _He’s lying to you, of course you know but I’m just saying. What do you even know about him? I’ll tell you about him, he betrays people, he lies, he’s using you as his cover and that’s all_.”

Before, sugar coated words used to go down smooth as honey, now though. I’d been able to hear it then, when I held onto the sink and trembled and shook my head so hard my hat flew off. Chin Chin was a liar, I knew that, he lied about what he wanted and what you meant to him, he lied about people and he lied, and he lied, and he lied.

I had stayed hunched over the sink when he disappeared somewhere in the apartment and I tried to get my shit together. I hadn’t known then why I couldn’t move, why I was throwing up blood and shaking so much, it’d been so long since I’d seen it that I’d forgotten about it and then he was back in the kitchen. And he was carrying a black instrument case, holding it like it was trash and shoving the thing into my hands.

I’d barely been able to stand but he’d made me hold the case, made me look at the sleek, expensive, pretty thing inside.

“ _I can prove it. He has this and he’s never even mentioned playing? Look at it Fake, **look**. He keeps it so well polished, spotless, and he’s never told you about it_.”

“He can have his secrets!” I’d shouted, tried to shout, my throat had been too raw and the blood that came up had tasted old and rancid in my mouth.

“ _Why is this a secret? He doesn’t hide his hands, he doesn’t hide what he does, if you asked he would tell you but he’s never breathed a word about this? You think he cares about you Fake? You think anyone but me cares? You could bleed out in the gutter and no one would remember your name! The only way to be somebody is to join me_.”

Honestly speaking, I have no idea why he left. He could’ve taken me with him, could’ve opened up a portal right there in the kitchen and dragged me through with him but no. He’d left me here to slump onto the cold tiles with the violin case in my lap and blood in my mouth. He’d left me with questions, questions that snapped and snarled like rabid dogs just waiting for the chance to bite.

Chin Chin was a dark god, I’d forgotten that. The blood in my mouth helps me remember, helps me remember back when I used to bring him live sacrifices. And now I might know better because a real god would’ve been able to stand against the Real Frank but I still remember all the fucked up shit he can do. I spit some old blood on the tiles and I think about what he said, what he implied and I can’t get the questions out of my head.

I hear the door creaking open, hitting something, then dragging. Chin Chin probably fucked up the apartment before he left. I hear footsteps coming closer, closer, closer and then they stop; I know Kohe is looking at me now but I can’t look away from the ceiling. I think about the questions and I think about the violin in my lap. I take a breath and open my mouth.

* * *

All I wanted was a warm cup of tea to wrap my cold, aching hands around, all I wanted was a quiet night with my friend.

The door hits something when I open it and I think Frank’s shoved the couch out of the way again, he’s always doing something and moving things. I don’t think anything of the door because it’s normal, I push harder and move the couch that’s definitely in front of the door and I…stop.

The room is chaos, chaotic, the couch cushions are bleeding stuffing in the corner, the rickety kitchen chairs are stacked in a pile, even our coffee table is over turned. There are books all over the floor and the sad rug we inherited is torn to pieces, I don’t have to look to know the tv is broken. I do look though because I need to see, the screen is missing, the entire screen, I take a step into the apartment and I find the missing glass on the blades of the ceiling fan.

I stop again because this is dangerous. I should leave, I should run, take the stairs and head for the back alley. I should use side streets and run for the second nearest subway station because they would be waiting at the closest. I shouldn’t still be here, frozen just inside my apartment, I should be running before they catch me because it doesn’t matter, I’ve embarrassed them and that’s unforgivable.

I take another step into my apartment, and another, another, and I’m in the kitchen. I look at the broken plates heaped on the table and want to curse. I want to shout, scream, run, but I look around at the rest of the dark kitchen. He’s on the floor, up against the cabinets so I don’t see him at first, I miss him on the first two looks and then I see him. Frank.

There’s blood on his shirt again and I can’t breathe, my breath is caught in my throat and I can’t…they hurt him.

“What’s up Kohe?” he asks, he asks as if he isn’t leaning against his own kitchen cabinets, bloody and beaten because of me. Why? Why did they touch him? He’s innocent, they don’t know him, he’s my roommate and that’s all he is even if I want more, even if I’ve gotten away with more touches than are friendly. My legs threaten to give out, I want to collapse but I can’t, I need to help him, I need to help Frank.

“I’m sorry,” I answer and my voice is hoarse, I sound like I haven’t spoken in years, like I’ve forgotten how. I take a step towards him and he finally turns to me, his head lolling on his neck like he has no strength to hold his head up and his lips are dark, more blood. My hands are shaking and I can’t stop them, they’re curled into fists and my nails are biting into the meat of my palms but I can’t stop them. They hurt him, no, **_I_** hurt him. If I had said something he would have been ready, he would have at least suspected.

“This isn’t your fault,” he says and the sound I make is something between a bark and a sob. He can’t really think that! What did they tell him? What did they make this look like? A normal home invasion? Did they say they were robbers hoping to steal what? Our apartment is dirt cheap because it’s shit and we both know it.

“Yes it is! I should have warned you, I-I should have told you about t-t-them,” I stammer and I bite my own tongue, even now the stutter, the stammer. I want to scream, I want to punch the wall, I want to grab him by the collar of his bloody shirt and shake him. He can’t think this is his fault, can he?

“Why didn’t you? Why didn’t you tell me about _this_?” he hisses and then something is slamming into my shins hard enough to make my stumble. I grab at thin air then at the table, remembering too late about the broken plates; the shards of glass sting as they slice my hand but I’ve had worse and they aren’t important right now. Right now I’m staring down at the thing that hit me, that Frank threw at me and my blood doesn’t even run cold, it evaporates because surely there’s no blood in my veins anymore.

My violin, the only thing I have from home, the only thing I could take with me because I couldn’t leave it behind. I don’t play, I can’t play, the scales are too different now and it hurts to think about playing much less doing it. I keep it clean, spotless, perfect and tuned, and I keep it under my bed, shoved up against the wall and hidden behind shoes and bags and everything I can.

How did they find it? What do the bedrooms look like?

“I-I didn’t think, I-you are my friend Frank but I can’t tell you ev-everything,” I say softly and I can’t meet his eyes. I should have told him, I should have at least told him about this eventuality but I can’t talk about the violin, I can’t talk about that part of me. Even if I love him, because I do love him, I can’t talk to Frank about his, I can’t talk to anyone about it. The pain is too sharp, sharper than the ache in my hands, longer lasting than the throbbing in my knees.

I can’t tell him about this.

“Why? Don’t you trust me? Oh wait, why would you trust the collateral plan? That’s what I am right? I’m here for when shit goes sideways, right!” Frank shouts and it’s so loud and his voice sounds raw, it sounds painful. A far away part of me is thinking about the pain in his voice, it’s the only part that can because the rest of me is angry, boiling and burning with anger. How dare he? How dare he even think something like that.

“You think I need powerful friends? I can take care of my-s-self! I don’t need people to pruh-protect me like some powerless pa-parasite!” I yell and the far away part of me notices the way Frank’s face drains of colour but I don’t care. I can’t help but think of the others who betrayed me, who I betrayed, and the way they were pardoned because of their powerful friends. My hands are shaking, aching, and my knees are hurting so much and Frank is trying to say this isn’t my fault while blaming me at the same time. I don’t understand, I don’t want to understand, I want my fucking violin gone!

“S-some of us can actually get along without r-running to friends for help! I am sorry for saying nothing Frank but neither did you,” I snarl and the hurt is thick in my voice, thick to my own ears the far away part of me notices. The far away part of me notices so much, that my voice sounds only cold and angry to Frank, that Frank flinches when I mention friends, but I don’t listen to that part right now. My heart is thudding away in my chest and I’m angry, at myself, at Frank, at myself for leaving in the first place, at myself for keeping the violin., at myself for being like this.

“What did you want me to say, huh Kohe? Oh I’m Chin Chin’s prophet? That I’m the one who’ll rule this shit when he takes over? Did you want to hear about all the fucked up shit I did for him? Or maybe you want to jerk it to how I died cause I bet you like that morbid shit you cunt!”…Frank curses and I. I need to leave, we will only keep this up, shouting at each other, insulting each other, cursing each other. I need to leave.

My feet are moving before I even realise I’ve made up my mind, Frank says nothing, I want him to say something, to shout at my back, to curse me some more. He stays silent and I keep walking, I get to the front door and I look down at my trembling hands. There’s blood, I’d forgotten about the plates and the glass and the cut isn’t very deep but it’s so familiar and I’m running. I’m running the way I should have run at the beginning, I’m running down the stairs and my knees protest ever step with sharp, shooting pain because it’s cold and I’m too broken for the cold but I don’t stop.

I’m flying out the door and down the empty street. My breath is sharp in my chest, like the broken glass in my palm but it doesn’t come as it should. I know I’m hyperventilating and if I keep running I may pass out but I don’t stop. The far away part of me says I should go to the nearest subway station and for the first time tonight I listen to it.

I know I can’t keep running, I know I have to go back to the apartment, but even the far away part of me agrees that I don’t have to do that now. So I keep running and I stop thinking.

 


	6. Blame the Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> because it tastes like...

[He hasn’t gone back to the apartment because he doesn’t know how to](http://vocaroo.com/i/s10cMtYIXqvB). What could he say? He could apologise of course, he has to apologise because knows how it must have sounded to Frank now. Frank doesn’t have any other friends, he has no one but Kohe now and Kohe thinks Frank never did. He’s heard about the fight that happened on the rooftop, from his own sources and from piecing together what Frank has told him.

Kohe knows now that mentioning powerful friends offended Frank the worst because it reminds him of going to fight with no one on his side. He feels sick, sick that he made Frank think of that time, but he still doesn’t go home.

He’s…somewhere, he isn’t sure exactly. The first night, the night he’d run out, he’d gone to a co-worker and begged to sleep on the couch. The second night, he’d gone bar hopping, drowsing at the tables and in the booths until he got kicked out. Tonight he’s just wandering, there hadn’t been enough work to keep him after hours like he usually got and he doesn’t think his co-worker will let him sleep on the couch again.

He doesn’t think it matters because he can’t sleep; he’s exhausted and tired and ready to drop but he can’t sleep. He knows that they haven’t found him, he knows now, because he’s talked to some of the people with connections and he’s listened to what he can. They’re not looking for him, not right now at least, and they don’t know where he is and they didn’t hurt Frank. Kohe isn’t responsible for his roommate sprawled out on the cold tile at least but he’s still responsible.

He’s still responsible for the look on Frank’s face when he shouted, he’s still responsible for the hurt and pain there. Kohe doesn’t know how to get the image out of his head, every time he let himself get distracted he would think back to the desperate undertone to Frank’s voice and he’d think about the blood coating Frank’s lips and he’d think about the violin case. Whoever had done that, even if it hadn’t been the people he thought, they’d still known about his violin and how could they know that?

The rain starts as a drizzle, light but persistent and the streets are already empty but the drizzle sends even the night cats running for cover. Kohe still has no idea where he is, where his idle feet are taking him while his panicked mind jumps from every insult thrown to the flinching to the broken…everything. He flexes his hand and his teeth grind together automatically because it hurts and the only way he knows to deal with pain is silence.

“My hands **_hurt_**.” Be quiet Kohe, you’re lucky to be alive.

“I can’t make a fist.” Shut up boy, you need to keep moving.

“I think my ankle’s sprained.” Bite your tongue and keep walking, it’s just a sprain.

Silence is his answer to most things now, he’s trained himself too well and he’s, he’s _confused_ because he’d shouted at Frank. He _shouted_. He **_shouted_** ; he can’t remember the last time he said anything above speaking volume but he’d shouted at Frank. The last time he’d wanted to shout and scream and rage had been too dangerous, he’d bitten his tongue until it bled, bitten his lips under they split. And now.

The drizzle turns into a downpour as he wanders into a residential area and he doesn’t even try to run for cover. The water is cold, freezing, and it hurts when it hits him but Kohe keeps strolling along. He wants a smoke but he doesn’t have any on him, he’d left them all at the apartment and he hasn’t bought any. He’s lucky he gets paid on a by-the-job-basis otherwise he wouldn’t have any money and he would have had to go back home.

There had been glass in his palm, chunks and slivers of it. He’d bitten his lip until it bled while he dug around in his own cut flesh with a dull pair of tweezers. There had been a lot of blood because of course hand wounds bled and he’d had to stop every few seconds to wipe it all away. He’d flushed all the bloody tissues afterwards and he’d tried his best not to think about the last time he’d had to do something like this, tried to forget the feeling of wrapping his hands with a strip of his own t-shirt. At least this time he’d had actual bandages.

He’s soaked to the bone, he’s shaking from the cold and everything is a muddle. He can barely see the sidewalk in front of him and the street lights are lost in a river of water; he blames all the water on the rain. He gasps for breath and wipes the wetness away from his face and he blames it on the biting rain, it’s all the rain.

It’s the rain’s fault he ends up back in front of his own apartment. He couldn’t see, he couldn’t think but he’s been staying at this apartment for months and he knows how to get to it from anywhere in the city. He’s trembling and his hands are shoved deep in his wet pockets and he knows he needs to get inside but he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to face Frank like this, doesn’t want to think about this anymore than he already has but he has to.

Kohe slips in through the front door and he takes the elevator up this time, for once he takes the easiest way. He’s shaking so hard that he can barely press the right button for his floor and he hits two other floors accidentally anyway but he can’t do anything about that. He leans against the elevator wall and waits, eyes closed as he thinks about what he could possibly say now.

“I’m s-s-sorr-ry,” might be the first words out of his mouth if his chattering teeth will let him, “please for-give me.”

The elevator dings and he pushes himself off the wall with a sigh, there’s no more time for thinking, he has to do this now. He only remembers he doesn’t have his key when he’s in front of the apartment door and has no way in. He can’t leave now, he should, because he may not find the courage to come back for days.

His hand is raised to knock when the door opens and he’s about to apologise when someone who isn’t Frank walks out. The Man is handsome and Kohe feels the blood run cold in his veins, colder than the rain water dripping onto the floor. The Man has dark hair and his lips are red and Kohe blanks, forgets all his words and stares.

“Call me if you ever wanna do this again, Frank,” The Man says with a smile, pushing past Kohe and sauntering down the hallway and Kohe doesn’t know what to do. Frank is in the doorway and his face is blank, then he smiles, then he smirks. The light is on in the living room and Kohe can see the room is put back together.

The light is on and he can see the dark marks all over Frank’s neck and the dark marks all over his chest because he isn’t wearing a shirt. The light is on and Kohe can see the easy, lazy smirk on Frank’s lips and he can see how very red those lips are and he wants to shout again but he’s frozen.

“I’m sorry!” he spits, the words tasting like acid as they drag themselves over his tongue and hang in the air between them. Here is Kohe dripping wet and looking ever the sorry sight and there’s Frank, wearing nothing but a pair of low riding jeans and a smirk.

“Miss me with that gay shit bro,” Frank laughs and it sounds so good, Kohe wants to wrap himself in the sound and lay in it for hours. He wants to tell Frank everything, he wants to tackle Frank to the floor and cover up all those marks with his own. He wants, he wants, he wants.

“You had your shit, I have my shit, it’s cool,” Frank says and Kohe doesn’t know what to say, he knows it’s not ‘cool’, he can feel it in his bones but what can he say?

“ _Who the fuck was that man? Why do you need someone like that? You have me Frank!”_

_“It’s not okay, I want to tell you, I want you to understand! Please let me explain this to you.”_

_“Who hurt you? Who put their hands on you Frank? Tell me their names, give me something anything and I’ll kill them.”_

He can’t say any of those things even if he wants to because it, it. He can’t, he doesn’t know why but he can’t.

“Thank you, Franku,” he mumbles and he walks into the apartment without any more words. Frank closes the door behind him, says something about a late dinner/early breakfast but Kohe just shakes his head, shakes so hard water goes flying. He can’t, he needs, he wants to sleep. He’s so tired and he just wants to sleep, he locks his bedroom door behind him and slumps against it. He’s so tired and this time he can’t even blame the rain for the wetness on his cheeks.

* * *

Two days, two days and counting and he knows he shouldn’t be doing this. He knows it’s petty as fuck and maybe one of the worst ideas he’s ever had but he isn’t thinking with his head right now. He’s thinking with his dick because he’s horny, and he’s lonely and he just wants to forget about his empty, broken apartment for a little while. Even if the apartment is mostly put back together it still feels broken to pieces.

He has no idea where Kohe is, he doesn’t even know where to start looking because apparently he knows fucking nothing about his roommate. Who did Kohe think fucked up the apartment? Who was Kohe so afraid of and who the fuck were they that they could trash a place like that without getting the cops called on them. He wants to know-fuck no, no more fucking thinking.

No more thinking tonight, tonight he’s going out and he’s finding some hot piece of ass and fucking it. Tonight he’s going to dress nice for once and he’s gonna forget all about how hard he scrubbed at the table to get Kohe’s blood off it and how he wiped down the violin case and put it back in Kohe’s room. Nope, he’s not thinking about any of that tonight because tonight he’s gonna enjoy himself for the first time in a long, long while and he won’t think about fucking Kohe.

So maybe the man he ends up drinking with has dark hair and maybe the man he ends asking the famous “your place or mine?” has a soft voice. So fucking what? Every drink burns on the way down, burns like his own blood did, and every time he looks over at the guy who bought him the first drink he thinks about the way Kohe’s face closed off on him but he’s not thinking about it.

Frank’s thinking about the way the bar’s shit lighting is catching the guy’s hair and he’s thinking about the dark, dark eyes whose colour he doesn’t know. He’s thinking about the full lips that curl into smiles and part on breathy laughter, he’s thinking about the way his name sounds in this man’s mouth. He wants to fuck this man, get fucked by this man, he wants to forget for a few calming hours and he wants to pretend Kohe isn’t still lingering on the edge of his consciousness.

The guy suggests his place but suddenly Frank wants to be home. He needs to be home because he doesn’t know why, maybe Chin Chin is back there or Kohe is, maybe they’re both there together. He doesn’t know but he does know he has to be there so he tells the guy “my place is closer” because it’s not a lie and it works. Well it works after he grabs the guy’s collar and pulls him in for a sloppy kiss; there’s too much tongue and too much teeth and it’s messy as fuck but it works. The guy pulls away looking dazed with a stupid half smile on his face and Frank has him.

They stumble out of the bar and onto the street together, Frank’s got one hand wrapped around the man’s waist and the man has a hand shoved into one of his back pockets. Frank thinks he should ask for a name as they’re walking, he thinks about putting a name to the face but he doesn’t ask. That’s him, the fucker who never asked shit so why should he expect anyone to give him anything? Right, that was him.

By the time they’re back to his apartment building, a block away and ha it _was_ closer, he’s angry again. He pushes no-name man into the elevator and hits the button harder than he needs to, he shoves no-name man up against one of the walls and starts kissing. He uses too much teeth, biting lips harder than he should and nipping the tip of the man’s tongue but he doesn’t stop himself. He tastes copper and he shudders because it tastes good, it tastes like anger, it takes like frustration and he wants more.

The elevator dings and the doors open and he’s dragging the man with him, out into the hall and they’re kissing again. Frank is the one pinned against the wall this time, pinned with a knee between his legs and a bruising grip on both wrists. The kiss is still brutal, more, because he’s the one being bitten now but he still loves it. There’s more blood in his mouth and he thinks about the blood he scrubbed off the kitchen table but no, no that’s not allowed. He grinds against the thigh pressed between his legs and tilts his head so he can chase the taste after the taste of shit beer and copper and…cinnamon.

Cinnamon is, cinnamon was. No, no fucking thinking, not about Kohe and not about Chin Chin either. Even if this nameless fucker has dark emo hair and even if he tastes like cinnamon and blood, no thinking.

The kiss breaks when Frank throws his head back and hits it hard enough to see stars. Nameless fucker doesn’t say a thing but there’s a teasing, mocking smile on his mouth and Frank’s mad. He’s mad that Chin Chin came for him after leaving him for dead, that Chin Chin came after months and months. He’s mad that Kohe lied to him, sure Kohe never lied to his face but lies of omission are a thing and they sure as fuck count. He’s mad that he chased Kohe off like that, he’s mad that he couldn’t move for hours after, that his joints were too stiff to do anything but stumble into his room and collapse on the bed. He’s mad that this nameless fuck looks like this and tastes like this.

Frank doesn’t know how he manages to get himself into the apartment because his head is still spinning and the nameless ass isn’t doing much to help him. They get there eventually though and he loses his shirt somewhere between the front door and his room. He also loses all verticality because he’s stumbling around like he’s drunk and okay yes he is drunk but not this drunk. He feels, he feels…drained but he feels.

“Fuck yeah,” he moans, grabbing a handful of that fucking emo hair and pulling hard on it because this fuck’s got one hell of a mouth. Frank doesn’t know how exactly they ended up on the bed but he’s there and he doesn’t want to be anywhere else. The nameless ass is sucking marks everywhere, teeth sinking into sensitive flesh and sucking so perfect for him that Frank can’t help all the whimpering, breathy noises.

His cock is hard inside his pants but his hands are pinned against the bed in a grip so strong he knows there’ll be bruises later. He tries everything he can think of, bucking hard and arching his back, he tries squirming, he tries begging.

“Please, god fuck. Let me hump your thigh or grind against your leg. Fuck, fuck, **_please_** , I just need, com’on please.”

Begging doesn’t work, even when he’s whining and moaning and fucking wet for it. He wants to feel a hot mouth on his cock, he wants to hear muffled, choking groans and he wants to look down and see maybe-brown eyes looking up at him. He wants to throw his head back when he hits the back of a throat and feels it tight around his cock, he wants to hear his name whispered and stuttered and said like a praise.

…

“Stop,” he gasps, rasps, breathes. His eyes are wide and his breath is stuck in his throat because he doesn’t.

“Stop!” he shouts, fighting against the hands pinning him and bucking hard enough that the bed frame creeks and hits the wall. He doesn’t want this nameless fucker, he can’t, he can’t do this. He wants dark hair and he wants a soft voice and he wants a smile so soft he could rub his cheek against it for hours and hours. He wants Kohe. Fuck, he wants **_Kohe_** and he can’t do this.

“Shit Frank, I’m sorry,” nameless fuck pants and damn he looks good, he looks so good and Frank wishes he wasn’t like this. He wishes he could have his distraction fuck without thinking about Kohe, about Chin Chin, he wishes he could forget the way he probably needs to. Kohe had his own shit to deal with, Kohe isn’t the only one in the wrong here.

Kohe hadn’t told him about his past so fucking what? Neither has Frank, he hasn’t told Kohe about why he did what he did for Chin Chin, he hasn’t told Kohe about all the things Chin Chin promised him and he doesn’t mean the chromosomes.

_“The two of us Fake, my good little Fake, just the two of us.”_

“Nah it’s, you didn’t,” he tries to get the words out but they’re stuck, he doesn’t know why they’re stuck but they are. He feels worse than before, the anger is gone but so is everything else, he feels completely drained and he doesn’t know why. He’s still getting up though, still following nameless ass out to the front door because he should at least make sure the fuck gets out of his apartment.

For some reason he isn’t even shocked to see Kohe standing there, shaking like a wet rat and looking about the same. He smiles because of course he does and he feels, strange, buoyant, like he hasn’t slept in days and now he’s somewhere beyond exhaustion. Kohe apologises and Frank can barely hear the words and for once it’s not because Kohe’s being quiet but he smiles and says something. He doesn’t know what he says, he hears the words, knows they’re coming from his mouth but he can’t figure them out.

Kohe brushes past him and he says something else, he still isn’t sure what words are spilling from his lips but…

Kohe’s door shuts and Frank knows it’s locked too. He stands there for a while with a stupid grin on his face and hickies all over his skin and he doesn’t think. Maybe if he could he’d know he never gave nameless fuck his name. Maybe if he could think he’d remember what this feeling was, the exhaustion, the giddiness, it’s like a drug but it’s a reverse addiction.

At least drugs gave you something but this, this takes. He remembers the tastes, cinnamon to cover the blood in his mouth and the smell of something burning. Chromosomes used to have this smell, like ice, but Chin Chin’s chromosomes always smelled like him, burning. When he took them, they smelled like burning too.

Frank sneezes and thinks nothing of the smoke smell stuck in his nose. He yawns and doesn’t think about the bone deep fatigue, he just flops down on the couch and sleeps. Later he’ll try to blame someone, and he won’t be able to because he’d been stupid enough to ignore all the signs and warnings and threats but that’s later. For now, he sleeps.

 


	7. Game of Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The only players are the ones with all the pieces and a bird's eye view of the board.

[Great power never comes without sacrifice,](http://vocaroo.com/i/s16imSRvfNQV%20) blood sacrifice and bone sacrifice, skin and soul sacrifice. I’ve seen civilizations fall because they refused to honour their dark gods, I’ve watched as millions died and were swept away by the hot wrath of their idols. I know the power of sacrifice and I know the temptation of power and I know how to use temptation.

I know how to dangle purpose in front of a man’s eyes and make him dance for me, I know how to coax the deepest desires out of a human’s heart and braid them into reality. The trick is to never give too much, always just enough. You never give them everything, if a man wants a meal, you give him crust of bread and watch him murder his own brother for another crumb. Humans are easy creatures to understand, they all want something, they all need something more than they have and it’s easy to make these wants align with my own needs.

In the past it was easy to get my sacrifices, every creature was so desperate to please me that they would walk on water if they could for me. I had been their God, their angry, dark god, and they had feared me as they all should. Whenever the flood of sacrifices slowed to a trickle, it had been easy to break the dams and bathe in their fear and devotion. Now it isn’t so simple, not when there are so many candidates emerging, not when the link between worlds is acting up.

Francis of the Filth thinks he’s beyond my power, he believes he can grow strong enough to fight me someday and he thinks these paltry sacrifices can appease me until then. He doesn’t know the realms I’ve crossed, he doesn’t know the creatures I’ve taken away for myself, he doesn’t know about his imposter.

“The sacrifice’s soon,” Fake Frank murmurs, leaning against my chair and he’s a good pawn. This one, I found him scavenging in one of the lost realms, hungry for food, thirsty for water, desperate for affection and wearing the face of a link. If he was ever a link he was lost when this realm fell, I don’t even know which realm this was but it’s a ruined, pitiful place; it’s perfect.

“ _Are you ready_?” I ask him, reaching down to run my hand through his hair, he’s a very good pawn, never assumes and always so eager to please. He knows what’s going to happen this year, knows that I’m going to banish the real Francis of the Filth and is more than ready to take his place. When I found him, he had no name so I gave him one, called him “Fake” like it was a term of endearment and played his heart like a harp.

“Fuck yeah, those motherfuckers won’t know what hit them,” Fake brags and I can tell he’s grinning, he’s a sadistic bastard when he wants to be. I know he’ll serve me well, serve me better than plastic pinnochio ever did all because he thinks he “ _has my affection_ ” and that I “ _value him_ ”. He doesn’t know that loyal servants are a chromosome a dozen, he doesn’t know the only reason I keep him around is because of his face, he’s such a naïve little dumbass, it’s almost endearing. Endearing the same way an animal would be I suppose.

“ _Fuck it up, Fake_ ,” I tease him, petting his hair like the animal he doesn’t realise he is; he takes my touch as loving, I see it as tolerating. He doesn’t know what I’m going to ask of him, what I’ve put off until this last second because I know it would’ve been too much to ask until now.

“ _Fake…I need something_ ,” I murmur, tilting my head down to look at him and twisting my face until I know he sees something worried, reluctant and concerned. I want him to think I don’t want to do this, I want him to think I care.

“Yeah?” he asks so easily and I’ve still got it, I can still play all these mortals like the puppets they are. I have to fight against the smile, I have to bite my tongue to keep the pleased noise in my throat and not in the air between us. I keep petting him with one hand and reach between the cushions of my throne for the tool, it’s been so long since I keep a servant around long enough to get them this far. There was rust on the handle when I went to get it but it’s bright and shining now, ready and waiting to do the work I have for it.

“ _After he’s gone I won’t be able to go to Frank’s realm, there are too many wards keeping me out, I won’t be able to see if you need help_ ,” I explain softly, reaching down to cup his face. He doesn’t know how easy it would’ve been to say _“I won’t be able to watch what you’re doing_ ”, the truth, but lies come easier to me. I hear his breath catch in his throat and the shadows in the room thicken with my excitement, I have him and all he needs is an extra push.

“ _I know you’re powerful Fake, I know you can fuck it up, but I need to know you’re safe,”_ I croon, leaning down over the edge of my throne to press a kiss to the crown of his head. I hate this affection, I want to wrap my fingers around his throat instead of cradling his cheek, I want to rip out a chunk of his flesh instead of kiss him. I am not an affectionate entity, I was never made to be one and every one of these little gestures is near painful but I need eyes in Francis’ realm.

“What do you need?” he breathes and the shadows writhe in ecstasy, they’re as excited as me, they’re ready to taste the devotion this one has for me.

“ _I need to see_ ,” I whisper, crawling out of the throne and into his lap, lifting his glasses off and opening my own ruined eyed to stare at him. I gave up my own eyes a long time ago, back when I first tasted of sacrifices, there’s nothing but empty sockets now. How I see is different now, I see shadows and heat, I see with sound and heartbeats and the smell of fear. I can’t see but I’m more powerful for it.

“ _I can use your eyes, if you give them to me, I can replace them with ones that will let me see_ ,” I tell him, reaching for the tool and for the eyes I made just for him. They’re black, they’re exactly like the ones I used to have, and I can use them.

“Y-you want my eyes? But how- ** _I_** won’t be able to see!” Fake splutters and his breath is coming faster now, the shadows slither over his legs but he doesn’t realise it. If he tries to run, he won’t even be able to get to his feet, I don’t want to force this on him but I will if he gives me no other choice.

“ _Yes, I can give you a different sight, do this for me Fake, please, I need to know_ ,” I beg, making myself sound like a hurt animal. I need him to think he’s important to me, I need him to think he’s one of a kind.

“I-I-I,” he’s hyperventilating but I see the change in his face, his shadowed face, and I hear the drop in his heartbeat, from panicked to decided. The smile isn’t fighable this time, I can’ help it, I smile and all three rows of sharp teeth are right there in front of his face. I know the effect this shark’s smile has on him, some parts fear, most parts arousal. I’ll fuck him after this, let him get used to his new eyes and I’ll fuck him again tomorrow, before I go to collect my sacrifices.

“Okay,” he says and I grin at him.

His hands are tight on the tool, knuckles white as he grips it, and he keeps glancing at me but his resolve is sound. He tries not to scream at first, tries to soldier through it as if that will make me love him more, at all. Once he hits the nerve though, the screaming is loud and piercing enough that I have shadows cover my ears to block it out.

There’s blood, I can smell it, so sharp I can almost taste it even though he’s kneeling in front of me. His heart is racing in his chest, trying to escape I think, and his teeth grind together as he tries to get his screaming under control. He can’t keep his breathing though, he’s panting for air, fighting for it and he’s still going which is nice, it’s nice to be worshiped.

Fake takes maybe twenty minutes to carve his own eyes out and drop them in front of me. His hands are covered in his own blood, there are tear tracks through the blood on his face but those are old, he must have damaged his tear ducts during the sacrifice. His chest is still heaving and he’s making the strangest little whimpering noise, he flinches when I tilt his head up with one hand under his chin.

He can’t see me, of course he can’t, so he can’t see the sadistic smirk on my face, he can’t see the hard on I’m sporting because of his little display. I take the time to admire his vulnerable little face, so like my enemy’s and I hold his eyelids open as I fit the new eyes into the empty sockets. He shudders violently, he draws a ragged, gasping breath and blinks.

He’s the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in that second; his eyes are pitch black except for the glowing pupils. The red glow is bright in the shadow covered room but all that glow does is add more shadow. I smile at him and drag him into my lap, kissing and biting, biting harder than I need to but that’s fine. I fuck him like that, looking at myself through his eyes as I fuck his sweet little ass and I’m more than ready for tomorrow.

* * *

Fucking Francis of the Filth; instead of losing himself in the omiverse he found his power and I’ve never been more furious. He chased me out of his realm, the realm I’d fought so hard to get a foothold in and now I’m forced to snatch up chromosomes wherever I can.

Fake doesn’t recognise me at the bar, he’s too preoccupied with my little visit and the fight with his little friend. That’s good for me though, he doesn’t look too hard at my face, doesn’t try to place my voice as it speaks this strange language and thinks nothing of my taste. He’s so delirious and ready to forget he doesn’t even feel as I steal chromosome after chromosome from him.

I know he’s a link now, only links could produce this many natural chromosomes and stand to lose them without dying. I wish I’d known before, I never would’ve left him on the rooftop to revive himself. I would’ve taken him with me, played the attentive lover and kept him near comatose as I siphoned chromosomes from him, it would have been far more ideal than this.

More ideal than taking the form of a human looking for a quick fuck. At least he pushes me away before I actually have to fuck him, he probably remembers his little friend, the one on the run from more powerful people and who clearly loves this little fucker. Fake grows attached so easily, all I have to do is break their trust in each other and make them doubt themselves, then I can swoop in again to be Fake’s saviour.

I know how to play this game so I leave when he asks, I smile at his “ ** _friend_** ”, and I double back so I can see them. Even beaten and hungry for sacrifices I can still sense every living creature in this disgusting apartment building, the humans, even the roaches though I don’t know which is more of a pest. I can sense Fake’s friend, I can taste his tears, so thick I can taste the salt even out in the hallway. I can hear the hitching gasps, the dull thud of flesh as he punches his own thighs, probably to get himself to be quieter or to stop altogether.

He’s pressed up against his door, the cheap wood creaking with his weight, and his eyes are open as he cries because I don’t hear him blink. The scent of salt is almost enough to cover up the tang of blood and oh, he’s biting his lip to stay quiet but there’s more blood here. I can’t zero in exactly but I know it’s either his thigh or his fist pounding the thigh, I decide the palm of his fist as he wouldn’t deliberately punch a wound even if the pain is ground.

On the other side of the door Fake, my Fake, is passed out on the couch. He’s making the same pitiful noises as his friend but there are no tears, he’d fucked up his tear ducts after all. Strange that he’d cry in his sleep but it’s been a long year since I abandoned this realm for my own, he may have become a complete pussy since I’ve been gone. His choice of roommate is proof enough, I can’t believe the fucker couldn’t spot it. Maybe it was a case of seeing what he wanted to see or maybe he thought his dangerous friend could keep him safe from what was coming.

I don’t know and I don’t actually care. I just needed to know and now I do, I leave using their fire escape because it lets me have one more taste of the salt in their apartment. I get to ground level and disappear through a portal; time to plan my moves for this new game.


	8. Variations on "The Last Rose of Summer" by Ernst

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and the discrepancies between variations

[Probably one of the stupider things I’ve done in life,](http://vocaroo.com/i/s1uQLZ11ssc5%20) if not the stupidest, I’m not sure how to rank them all. The room is dark and the stage is waiting for me, I have my violin at my side and I have my bow ready and waiting and what am I doing here? Money?

[Of course it’s the money,](http://vocaroo.com/i/s1Ax1q9PeqW5) money and what they can get me. I shouldn’t be here, I shouldn’t be playing for these people but what choice do I have? I can’t insult…I can’t let anyone know what I do and I can’t let them know what I need the money for. I’m taking risks I shouldn’t be, I’m playing with fire but there’s fire in my veins anyway, I’m burning up and because I need more and I can’t get it unless I play for these people.

“Are you ready?” one of the men asks, all jovial and generous as if I’m just another performer here for the night, can he tell? I nod and my head spins, is it the anxiety or the need? I can’t tell. I haven’t had in two days because I didn’t have the money, I’ve been skipping classes but I don’t care, I haven’t cared about anything in a while.

“Alright, when the stage lights up, you walk out and begin,” the man tells me and I can’t even nod again but he doesn’t seem to care. He walks away and I’m left in the dark, they want a spectacular performance for someone in the audience tonight, someone fond of violin music but they never told me who. Or maybe I never asked, I don’t think it’s important enough.

I hear an announcement, something about the important person but I’m too busy leaning against the wall trying to catch my breath. I don’t know what this is, withdrawal or panic, I never did know. What will happen if I don’t live up to their expectations? What happens if someone sees me here performing my best for these people? What if I’ve left too hot of a trail coming here?

I don’t know the answer to any of the questions, I don’t think they have answers and the stage is slowly being lit. I grip my bow tighter, feeling the smooth wood and knowing I’m not in a good place. If this were a story, I would go out onto the stage and play the best I’d ever played then I would refuse any compensation given to me because I would realise how fucked up this is. I would go back to being the good student I’ve always been, I would play for the right people and I might even visit my mother.

…or maybe I would end up dead in a ditch at the end of the story, not even a ditch, there would be nothing left.

The stage is fully lit now and I have to go, I can’t even run out on them because they would find me. My hands are cold but no sweat, my heart is racing but my head is as clear as it’s been in weeks, I know what to play and it’s the only thing I know. Every step I take out onto the stage is loud, echoing and make my way to the exact centre where they’ve set a marker for me.

I look out at the audience and see faceless silhouettes, nothing but shadow people sitting around in this fancy restaurant waiting for my performance. I glance at the people closest to me and know the important person isn’t there, I look at the booths and he isn’t their either, then I look up at the upperfloor lounge with its glass wall and even if I can’t see him, I know he’s there.

My hair is longer now, it’s been a while since I cared, and it helped hide the dark bags under my eyes but I don’t think it will matter now. I bow to them, these people, and feel the heat of their eyes on my back, I straighten up and put my violin to my chin, put my fingers in the right order and bring my bow up. I haven’t been practicing like I should all these weeks, too caught up in the haze of the high, too caught up in hiding the addiction and the need.

“I will now perform for you, The Last Rose of Summer,” I announce in the careful voice I had been taught to use when performing; you have to make sure it projected without shouting. There’s a smattering of polite applause and a whisper of voices but both die down quickly and I breathe out as they quiet. This piece is one of the most difficult I know, my teacher insisted I learn it and if I can remember all my cues, all my places and notes, it will certainly impress the important person in attendance.

The important person…persons move to stand by the glass. I know they’re the ones in charge tonight, whomever they are and I only hope I’m good enough for them.

I breathe in and start.

-0-

I’ve embarrassed them, playing for those people and hiding it, but what could I do? Better the embarrassment of not being able to take care of their errant school boys than the embarrassment of their errant school boys being addicts. Lesser of two evils I think, maybe, maybe. They don’t know about the…syabu, I don’t think they do at least because they’re not whispering about that.

“You played for them?” he asks, I don’t want to name him, I don’t want to acknowledge who I’m standing in front of, head down.

“Yes,” I answer because even if I don’t want to believe I’m here, that I got caught so easily, stupidly, I’m still here and this is still happening. I’m shaking and sick panic is twisting in my stomach, stuck in my throat, I want to breathe quick and fast but I can’t let myself. I can get away with some anxiety but I can’t let them see anything else, I can still get through this with my life if not everything.

“Why?” he asks, voice genial as though he’s willing to offer me mercy, as though I’m some child who can be bought with a kind tone and sweets. My mother doesn’t talk about my father but she doesn’t have to, I know who this man sitting in front of me is and what my father did to end up here too. He had been stupid, foolish, brash and arrogant enough to think he was worth something to them.

“I needed money,” I answer.

“For what?” he asks.

“I just did,” I answer.

Everything is short, to the point, there’s no use asking useless questions and getting useless answers in return. I refuse to tell them, even though they could find out themselves if they cared to check; the syringes are in my violin case and it wouldn’t be hard to track down my dealer. They won’t though because they’d rather believe in gambling or alcoholism, maybe I’ve been buying whores, they don’t really care because at least this way it’s left up to chance.

Besides, my dealer is a foreigner who’s leaving in less than a week, at least I was smart about one thing.

“How will you apologise?” this isn’t a question even though the question mark hangs in the dead air between us and I feel the pins and needles in my hands start up. I haven’t been able to get any in nearly sixteen hours, the longest since I started and now I’m standing here with scattered thoughts and a single chance.

“Traditionally,” I say because it’s the only thing I have left, I can’t tell him why I needed the money and I can’t tell him what I did with the last bit of it. The plane ticket is waiting at home, hidden in my violin case next to the syringes and it’s set for a week from now. Everything should be out of my system by then and the scrutiny would be marginally less as well, if I can survive the week, I can run.

“Very well.”

I don’t look up when the bone white cloth is brought and placed on the desk in front of me, I don’t so much as breathe when the knife is placed next to it. I know what I’m losing here and now, I know how much I’m giving up but it’s better than ending up broken and dead. Better cut up and bruised than broken and dead, the words link hands with each other and dance circles in my head. Everything is spiralling, my breath is steady and my pulse is normal but I feel the cold in my hands though I don’t sweat.

Better broken and living than cut and dead. Better bruised and cut than broken and dead. Better dead than living cut up and bruised and broken. Better, better, better.

The knife’s handle is smooth, hard, I hold it firmly. _Broken and bruised._

I splay my fingers on the cloth like I’m about to play the knife game. _Cut up and dead_.

I know I have to do this quickly to get the cleanest separation but my heart is in my throat. _Living and broken._

I don’t even feel pain as I slice my hand, perfectly at the join, as clean a cut as an amateur could make. _Better off dead._

I switch hands quickly, fighting to stay on the painless plateau so I can do the other hand. _Better than living._

I slice my palms as well, make it seem like an accident, make it seem like respect _. Better cut up and living than broken and dead._

I fold the cloth crispy, completely ignoring the stains on the sleeves of my shirt, the smears on my wrists as the blood flows thick and slow. I present the cloth to him and bow, it’s taken from my hands and there are hands on my upper arms. I’m being dismissed, alive, and now all I have to do is fight through the withdrawal. All I have to do is stay locked up in my tiny apartment and pretend I’m nursing my mutilated hands and not syabu withdrawal.

In a week I have to be ready, able, to move. In a week, I’ll have to leave everything behind and head to Australia. For now, I have to pretend that the shaking is from the pain I’m still not feeling and maybe that’s adrenaline working for me. I can’t stop trembling but the pain hasn’t hit yet so I can keep one foot moving in front of the other.

I stumble on the doorstep of the building then I’m out on the street and I have to keep moving, I have to get home. One foot in front of the other, hands in hoody pockets because they’re still bleeding and I can’t be stopped otherwise I won’t be able to start again. One foot in front of the other, breathe, breathe because I’m alive, I’m still alive and better cut up and broken and bruised than dead.

* * *

The restaurant’s definitely a smancy one, exactly Chin Chin’s style and Frank doesn’t have to think too hard about it. Every realm has one of these, the fancy restaurant owned by whatever gang and acting as a very good front for whatever the fuck they’re doing, every realm he’s been too at least. He’s actually a little late when the bouncer in front lets him slip in through the back so he doesn’t disturb anyone on the way up to the lounge.

He barely looks at the stage where some emo fuck is playing the violin of all things, he still doesn’t understand why Chin Chin likes those. The music’s too high pitched, sometimes it grates and wears on his nerves but at least this guy kinda knows his shit and isn’t making the thing screech. He doesn’t stop to listen though because like he said, he’s late and he doesn’t want to waste any more time.

He slips into the empty lounge and thinks the room is deserted for a few seconds before he spots Chin Chin standing by the window. He’s been playing the game for two months so far and he already misses Chin Chin, he misses the validation and he misses the power. Sure the real Frank’s world is full of chromosomes just ripe for the picking but it’s nothing compared to the slick, dark power he’s used to. He’s used to bathing in an ocean, being dragged down to the very depths even where the pressure is so strong he can feel his lungs organs being crushed by his own bones.

Chin Chin’s power is all consuming and Frank’s into that vore shit, if you know what he means.

“ _The show is going well_ ,” Chin Chin says not asks and Frank collapses into one of the fancy couches in the empty lounge. There were probably other people up here but Chin Chin sent them out when he saw Frank coming, he still isn’t used to that but he’ll deal, he has to. He was probably wearing a disguise too, something human, unobtrusive to blend in and Frank’s glad he didn’t see it. He loves seeing the real deal.

“Yeah, thinking about collabing with some of those other youtube fucks, the lycra hate me,” he adds offhandedly even though it kinda hurts to say. He thought looking like the ‘real’ Frank would be enough to get them to like him, Pink Guy at least if not Safari Man but nothing. Pink Guy still throws shit at his head every time he comes to close, once it was hot ramen and he has the burns to prove it. He’s actually missing Chin Chin more than he thought he would and more than he wants to admit.

“ _They know you’re not him but they don’t matter_ ,” Chin Chin explains, finally turning to face him and Frank feels the temperature drop, his breath catches in his throat but that’s normal. He can feel the charge in the air, like a storm or some shit, and the glass wall is slowly frosting over but not the way it would if this was normal cold. Nah, there’s strange shit in the ice, some of the patterns almost look like faces and Frank recognises at least once before he looks away, better to look away, always better to look away.

“So what do you think?” he asks but it’s breathless and he can feel his pulse jumping with every step Chin Chin takes towards him, every predatory step that’s got his heart wanting to jump into his mouth. He wants Chin Chin to say he’s done a good job, to reward him for such a good job, the peacelords don’t even suspect there’s anything wrong and it’s all because Frank’s been such a good actor. He wants to hear the words, he wants to wrap himself up in them and bask in their glory, feel their warm everywhere.

“Not bad.” All he gets is a not bad, off handed and dismissive and his heart drops into his stomach. He knows it’s on his face too, the disappointment, but he doesn’t even care because Chin Chin’s in front of him now and he’s smiling as sharp as a shark. Frank doesn’t have the time to say anything else before he’s got a lapful of freezing flesh and he can’t say anything when a tongue shoves its way halfway down his throat.

He’s used to this though and his body reacts before his mind does, both hands are on Chin Chin’s hips and he’s kissing back although not very well. There’s the taste of cinnamon and copper, rich and decadent on his tongue and it’s overwhelming, everything about Chin Chin is always overwhelming. He’s always so cold that he burns but Frank loves the feeling, the tingling, almost achy feeling of pressing his naked body up against Chin Chin’s and just staying like that for hours.

He knows he’s moaning too loud even though it’s muffled and he knows his hips are bucking up, searching for the smallest bit of friction but knowing doesn’t do shit in stopping even though he doesn’t want to. He should though, because this isn’t what they came here for even if it feels like there’s nothing else they should be doing but it’s been so long and he loves the weight of his dark god in his lap again. He loves giving up and letting Chin Chin have total control, he loves feeling Chin Chin’s hands in his hair, feeling the scrape of claws over his scalp.

He loves the nip of too sharp teeth and the taste of his own blood when he gets cut on them because it makes him feel alive, makes him feel special. No one else could get away with just a few nicks and scratches and bitemarks and bruises, Frank’s special because he gets to taste a dark god’s dark pleasure salty and hot in his mouth. He’s the only one that gets to see black eyes wide and sightless and see the rows of teeth every time Chin Chin opens his mouth to moan or hiss or shout something.

Even as much as he loves it, Frank still needs to breathe and he’s light headed when Chin Chin breaks the kiss. He’s panting but he still chases after another kiss, just one more, and gets a finger pressed to his lips for his troubles. He doesn’t mind though, he just kisses the finger, licks it and tries to keep eye contact while he does because he knows how much Chin Chin loves it, sometimes he thinks Chin Chin is looking at himself using Frank’s eyes when he does anything like this but he doesn’t even care. Maybe if he could think with his head instead of his dick he might but not right now and he never remembered afterwards, not once.

“ _We have five minutes Fake, maybe ten_ ,” Chin Chin whispers, smirking in his face and all Frank needs is the single second where Chin Chin’s off him before he’s scrambling off the couch. He’s on his knees in record time and they’ll probably hurt like a mother fucker tomorrow but right now all he cares about is choking on Chin Chin’s cock and swallowing every last drop of cum that he can.

He’s got the black suit down next and spends too long staring at the hard dick in front of his face, the head’s the perfect shade of red and the veins are standing out and there’s even a drop of precum at the tip. He licks his lips first because he can’t help himself then he’s licking up the bead of precum, lapping at the head and slit like a fucking cat for a while so he can savour the taste. Then he lets his jaw drop, sticks his tongue out and swallows Chin Chin’s cock whole, gagging a little when it hit the back of his throat but he doesn’t give a fuck.

When he moans, it’s not because he knows how much Chin Chin likes the feeling of it against his dick, it’s because Frank can’t fucking help himself, he loves this. He loves tracing the veins with his tongue and he loves the ache in his jaw as he bobs his had as fast as he can without hurting anything. He has ten minutes at most and even though he’d love nothing better than to drag this out, he doesn’t really have the time to stop and rest his cheek against one burning cold thigh.

No, instead, he uses every single trick he has and everything from past experiences to work Chin Chin to the edge as fast as he can. He sucks on the head so there’s an obscene ‘ _pop’_ when he pulls off to lap at the tip, he moans when he’s got the whole dick in his mouth because he knows the vibration sends Chin Chin crazy. The hands in his hair drag him down, hold him there sometimes and he breathes harsh through his nose; breathes in musk and sweat and heat and sex while he swallows a couple of times for good measure.

He’s half delirious when Chin Chin starts bucking into his mouth, hands in his hair pulling and hips coming to meet him. He loves being face fucked too, when Chin Chin forgets all about letting Frank do the work, not this is when Chin Chin treats him like a living breathing sex toy, something to stick his dick into another nothing else. Frank doesn’t know what he gets off on more, the pleasure-pain of it or the humiliation of just being a warm hole, maybe some sick mix of both he doesn’t know.

Some part of him hears the applause as the violin cuts out and there’s probably a break now before the guy starts up again. Whoever was in here is going to come back in a few minutes and they’ll get caught, or not because Frank could always tell when Chin Chin was close, something in the stuttering rhythm or how deep an already husky voice got. He relaxes his throat as much as he can but he still chokes a little when Chin Chin cums down his throat, cum hot and salty and sharp with the ever present taste of cinnamon.

He doesn’t give a fuck about choking though because he’s still groaning through it, swallowing over and over again as he tries to milk every last drop. He’s still got a situation in his own pants but he can deal, it’s enough to have the taste of cock and cum on his tongue and the sweet burn on his lips and his head and his hands. He’s just getting to his knees and Chin Chin’s disguise is slotting into place when the door opens and the man they’ve come to see is walking in.

Chin Chin starts talking business and Frank drifts out, he doesn’t really need to listen because Chin Chin will explain it all again later and it’ll be easier to understand too. He looks out the unfrosted window and the violin guy is taking the stage again, looks kinda shaky but when he starts to play it’s still good. Frank wonders what his name is and if he’s free anytime soon because Chin Chin’ll be leaving too soon for them to really fuck and violin guy is cute at least.

He forgets about it sometime between the fifth and sixth songs though and even if hadn’t, the guy’s gone by the time Frank’s out of the meeting. He completely forgets the guy by the time he’s out of the country again and he never does remember him but what’s there to remember? A guy with dark hair playing the violin in a smancy restaurant; there had to be dozens, maybe hundreds of guys like that in that prefecture alone and they probably all interchangeable.

What would have been the point remembering him anyway?

 


	9. Breathe, Hold, Release

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and know that dark deals are better than none.

[I made a deal with a Dark God and now I’m dying](http://vocaroo.com/i/s123YGjao0IC). I made a deal with my saviour and now I’m feeling my way along a wall. My chest hurts and I can’t tell if it’s my own ribs stabbing me or my traitor heart ready to tear itself out because I still…

I want to cry, I’d give anything to cry, but I can’t. He took everything from me, he took my sight, he took what little power I had, he made me his fucking attack dog and I **_let_** him. He used me and I didn’t even see it, now I can’t see anything.

My arm’s broken, I know it is, I can hear the edges of bone grinding against each other every time I stumble but I can’t help it. Fuck I can’ help myself, I never could, could I? There’s blood on my shirt, I’m probably covered in it and I swear I’ve swallowed glass because my throat shouldn’t feel like this but I can’t do anything about it. There’s no one to turn to, nowhere for me to go and the only person I thought I could trust is gone, he fucking _left_ me.

He left me, he left me, he _swore_ and he **_lied_**! 

He’s gone and I’m feeling my way along this grimy, filthy wall in this grimy, filthy alleyway and it’s so dark that I’m truly blind. Even the little sight he left me with is gone because it’s too dark to for shadows and the only sounds I can hear is my own broken body fighting to keep itself together. There are…cars, further off but they might as well as be as far away as the fucking moon, not that it would matter if I could get to them.

“Chin Chin,” I shout, I try to shout, but the glass in my throat stops me and I can barely hear myself now. I can barely hear my heartbeat wild in my chest, I can barely hear the whistle-wheeze-sputter of my own breath because all I can hear is him. Him in my head, his promises, his plans, his deals.

_“We can rule this omniverse.”_

_“All the chromosomes you want Fake.”_

_“You’re my trump card, I need you, I’ll keep you safe.”_

_“I need to see.”_

_“Together, we’ll stay together, I promise.”_

**_“I’m out of here, this fight is borderline gay and now I have an STD.”_ **

The last one echoes in my head, bounces around, feels like a punch to the gut every single time I remember. He left me, he left me there, he left me for them to do whatever they wanted, how could he leave me?

I can’t keep walking, I don’t know how I even made it off the roof, I don’t know how I didn’t go stumbling off the edge and why I’m not a nasty little smear on the street. I don’t know how I’m in this alley and I don’t know how I’m alive but if living means suffering like this I wish I’d died. If I had the balls, I’d reach down and feel for one of the broken bottles I keep kicking out of my way. If had the strength to slit my throat with the bottle though I wouldn’t be here, I would’ve been strong enough to fight for Chin Chin and survive.

I reach for the next section of wall, miss and then I’m falling. I hit the ground so hard my breath wheezes out of my ruined lungs and I’m back on top of the roof wheezing for breath. I blink my blind eyes and I smell the rancid, rotten garbage of a nearby dumpster but it’s not enough to ground me because I’m drifting.

I’m…I’m back in my original realm, I’m shivering so cold because fire’s hard to come by here and it only attracts shit anyway. I don’t have any spare cloth anymore, I used the last of it to trick one of the creatures and I haven’t found any more so I’m in my threadbare shirt and I’m freezing. I’m back there under the black sky and I’m cold and I’m hungry and I’m so tired but I can’t sleep.

I’m sprawled out in a filthy alley but I’m back there too, I’m shivering and I’m aching and the pit in my stomach is a physical thing waiting to swallow me up. I’m wheezing, fighting to get up back up because I can’t stay here, but also I’m listening to something coming near, I’m feeling cool things stroke over my legs.

I wish I’d know back then what the cool things were, I wish I’d know they were **_his_** shadows. Maybe I would’ve had the chance to run if I’d known, if I had the smallest idea, I would’ve gotten to my shaking legs and ran as fast as I could.

My hand scraps against the edge of the stinking dumpster and I grab for it like a life line but I’m sitting up, forcing myself to my feet and reaching for my gun even though I don’t have any more bullets. My fingers hurt from how hard I’m grabbing the dumpster, trying to use the pain to keep me in the here and now but I’m holding my gun like a bat, ready to swing at whatever the fuck’s after me now.

I get my feet under me and I’m using the dumpster that’s coated in fuck knows what to get back up and I’m shivering but this time it’s not from the cold, it’s because I can see two red eyes. I wheeze and I cough and fight for breath as my heart beats so hard I think I’m having another heart attack but I’m frozen in fear too because the thing that finally comes into view isn’t human, it’s not even a creature and it sure as fuck doesn’t belong to this realm.

I’m leaning against the dumpster and all my muscles are weak, a puff of wind could throw me down again but I’m back there, I’m looking at this creature that’s…surreally beautiful and holding out something to me. My head is tilted up and my eyes burn with the tears I can’t even cry because I remember reaching- _snatching_ for the food in the creature’s hand because I’m starving, ravenous; I’m less human than him in that second and a second is all he needs.

I’m wheezing and it could be sobbing, it could be laughing and my chest aches from moving like this but I can’t help myself, maybe I’m hysterical. I can’t stop, I’m sobbing, I’m roaring with laughter and I’m shoving the food in my mouth, swallowing without chewing. And he’s holding out something else and I take it and he tells me his name, he doesn’t ask mine but he smiles and I catch the end of it. I take his water, I take his food, I let him lead me away with him and it’s the first deal I made with him even if I didn’t realise.

And where did it get me? What was the point of making a deal with a Dark God if I’m right back where I started? Was there any fucking point?

Maybe this was how it was always supposed to play out though because deals with Dark Gods always end up about as good as deals with the Devil right? Maybe I’m lucky enough to leave with my life even if it isn’t much of a life. Maybe I’m lucky to have my sanity even if it isn’t here right now.

Maybe I’m just lucky to have ever made my deal with my Dark God.

* * *

He thinks it’s because they still haven’t talked about it, because every time he so much as mentions it, Frank shuts down. Kohe knows what he feels like because every time he think about the way he shouted, _shouted_ , he wants to bite his tongue until it’s numb and his hands are shaking but…they need to move past this. He can’t keep living with a person who’s as likely to ignore him as join him for breakfast.

The thing is, Kohe’s never been good at talking either and he doesn’t know how to make Frank listen to what he has to say. He still doesn’t even know who did this, Frank says it was someone from his past but nothing more and none of Kohe’s connections have heard so much as a whisper. He knows Frank isn’t telling him the truth and it makes him…frustrated, angry, betrayed but what ground does he have to stand on?

Work was light again tonight, the colder months usually mean less packages after all and it’s not like he’s a regular runner, or regular enough to get a chunk of the fewer deliveries at least but he doesn’t exactly mind. He knows how to manage his money and he makes enough to keep the lights on at least, he completely ignores the way his stomach clenches when he thinks about how much money he has left. He can take other jobs though, he might have to, and at least in America it’s easier to work freelance even though it’s just as hard to gain trust.

What did Frank want him to say though? Frank thinks he’s the only one with embarrassing, illegal and morally wrong shit in his past? Kohe snorts and blows a smoke ring, watching it get torn to pieces in the brisk wind. It’s cold up on the roof top but it’s the only place he knows Frank won’t accidently stumble across him, he knows it’s underhanded but Kohe needs the time to himself.

How would he even start to explain?

Okay the syabu he might understand, if there’s anything Frank would it would be the syabu but how to tell all the rest? How to tell about mutilating his own hands and giving up his music? How to tell about running away to Australia with barely a thousand yen in his pocket? And that’s without even trying to explain how he got from Australia, a country he’d never been to before, to America, another country he’d never been to before?

The cigarette tastes stale, the nicotine coats his lungs and it doesn’t even do anything for him. He should throw it over the side of the building and go back inside where it’s warm, maybe he can pretend the dark hickies on Frank’s neck don’t bother him, that he doesn’t want to cover each and every one of them with his own marks. Fuck, what he wouldn’t do to kiss Frank, just once, he wants to taste the startled little gasp he knows Frank would make, he wants to swallow every sweet sound and lose himself in the man he’s somehow fallen in love with.

Kohe wants to, he wants to, to treat Frank the way he deserves. He wants to worship Frank’s body, to kiss and caress every single inch of skin and leave his marks in his wake so no one can ever question whether Frank is loved. He wants Frank to know that he’s not alone anymore, that he doesn’t have to pretend he’s over whatever the fuck happened on that rooftop.

Like Kohe still has any room to talk, he can barely think about Australia so forget talking. He takes another drag on the cig and adjusts his glasses, he doesn’t need them right now because he doesn’t have to read anything but he likes keeping them on. When it’s windy like this his hair is up out of his eyes and he can’t help feeling vulnerable, it’s better to have something between himself and the world.

A buffer, a buffer between him and whatever he’s doing. Most of the time it’s his silence, his refusal to say a single thing more than he has to, or it’s his stutter when he’s forced to speak up because silence won’t get him what he needs. He still doesn’t understand why he shouted at Frank, how he could, he can’t remember the last time he shouted but what does it mean? Is he so comfortable around Frank, even when they’re fighting and cursing and damning each other? Or was it because Frank was the one forcing him to look at the shit he’d done?

He’s not sure and he wants to be, fuck but he wants to be sure. He wants to know why he’s acting this way when he never has before, he’s never cared about anyone else before so why now? Why does he want Frank to want him back? Why, why, why, just why?

He doesn’t realise the cigarette’s burned down until the heat brushes his fingers and he drops it automatically; he’s so careful of his hands now. He steps on the butt for good measure but he holds his smoke filled breath for a few seconds too long because he likes the burn, the burn grounds him if nothing else.

Then he breathes out and remembers the last time he actually took the time to enjoy a smoke, back when he came back from that other job and found Frank in the kitchen. When he’d breathed out then, he swore he saw Frank zero in on his lips, he swore he was going to drag Frank into a kiss then and there. He thought one of them would end up pinned against the counter but no, no nothing had happened and now, maybe, nothing would happen.

He pulls his gloves out from a pocket and takes off his glasses, he’s chain smoked half a pack standing up here on the roof and now it’s time to go inside. He still wears the gloves because they were a gift and it would be nothing less than rude to stop wearing them now, besides his hands are just about frozen now. He runs one through his hair, trying to get it to lie flat as he walks across the rooftop but all he ends up doing is pulling on it.

They need to work this out, soon preferably, but he just needs a little more time to figure it out. He doesn’t notice that the door is hanging open when he reaches it and doesn’t remember how he shut it behind him.

 


	10. I fought a Dark God

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and it wasn't my biggest mistake

[He just wants to sleep,](http://vocaroo.com/i/s1QLyXMHBs6v) he wants to curl up and sleep for nineteen hours so he doesn’t have to deal with feeling like complete shit. His hands are shaking and he kept stop himself from wanting the sweet little prick of a needle, something to take him high for a while but he knows he can’t. He’s already lost so much the first time and even if it’s easier to get here, easier to hide here where no one knows him and no one gives a fuck about him, he can’t do that again because he doesn’t know what he’ll lose this time.

Kohe runs a shaking hand through his hair and squeezes his jaw tight so hard he can feel the pressure in his temples. He’s…he’s angry and he’s jealous, he knows there’s probably a perfectly acceptable answer to his anger at least but he doesn’t know what it could be as for the jealousy well. He’s jealous of every little mark on Frank’s neck, the purple bruises and the bright red bruises and the teeth marks that Frank thinks he can’t see.

He wants to. He wants to grab Frank and shake him because no, no! The man who comes to their apartment, the one who’s all slick smiles and smooth words isn’t good, Kohe doesn’t know how he knows it but he does. And maybe he could play it off as him being jealous of the strange man who gets to touch Frank whenever he wants and kiss Frank and say all the soft, sweet things Kohe wishes he could. He knows he’s jealous of the man and he knows he would hate the bastard for that alone but there’s something else.

Kohe doesn’t know the man’s name, Frank has been seeing this person on and off for the last two weeks and Kohe doesn’t know his name. He’s asked Frank but Frank always mumbles something and wanders off, he doesn’t think Frank knows the man’s name either and isn’t that strange?

If they were just…if they were just fuck buddies, maybe he could understand because why get attached to a quick fuck? But no, that isn’t what’s going on here, Frank is, he’s different now and maybe that’s Kohe’s fault but it can’t be all his fault. He can’t be the only reason Frank’s stopped making all of his inappropriate jokes with real humour behind them, he can’t be the reason Frank’s sharper now, the reason Frank has a shot gun hidden away in his room now.

He doesn’t buy it, he’s Frank’s only friend but he can’t be the only reason.

And they still haven’t talked about what Frank found in his room, or even who beat him to shit and Kohe’s mad about that too. How dare any of those _fuckers_ from his past come back after a **_year_**? Frank hasn’t even been doing anything to affect their war, the…the Dark God that left Frank for dead hasn’t been seen since the fight on the roof; he knows because he has acquaintances who know these things.

The rest of them, the “Real” Frank and his group had their chance to make sure Frank was dead and they didn’t take it so why now? How did they even find Frank anyway?

Kohe knows he’s skipping from topic to topic without thinking anything through but he’s too flustered to focus on anything specific. He also knows he should be heading home instead of wandering around the city in the earliest hours of morning but fuck that, the streets are all deserted except for the occasional homeless person and he prefers walking. He doesn’t want to go home and find Frank with more marks on his skin, with a sharper smile than he left him with and with a literal loaded gun.

He doesn’t know what to do on a whole actually so Kohe shoves his hands deeper in his pocket and keeps walking.

He doesn’t realise someone’s following him until he doubles back on himself and crosses the same street twice before going back the same way he came. The person is a shadow in the corner of his eye and they duck into an alley before he can really see them but it’s enough to spook him. He’s double crossing streets, triple crossing them, and running across the road at the last possible second before the light turns green for cars to go rushing past. He’s ducking into alleys of his own and trying to figure out who’s following him.

Have they really found him? Was Frank lying? But no, this person isn’t…they aren’t following him like a trained person, they’re…stalking. They’re acting like he’s a mouse running through a maze and coming up blocked every time, they’re acting like following him is something they’re doing for fun and he’s furious.

Kohe crosses the street again and ducks into an alley way he’s pretty fucking familiar with. When he first started asking around about this strange person, this Frank, his acquaintances had told him about someone bleeding out in an alley, laughing against a dumpster. Kohe had visited it of course because, because…he still doesn’t have an answer for that, he still doesn’t know why he visited the alley so many times.

He’s glad now though, because he’s too far from home and the person is too close to let come any closer. He ducks into the alley and is crouched behind the dumpster, his jaw aches from how hard his teeth are clenched and his hand is tight on the handle of his knife; the knife’s the only thing he keeps on him at all times now.

The person stops at the mouth of the alley because of course they do, they’ve been following him for the last ten minutes, that he knows of at least. They take a few echoing steps and they stop.

“I don’t understand,” they say and, and, and Kohe **_knows_** that voice. He’s scrambling from behind the dumpster, one hand still wrapped around his knife because he still feels, he still feels the prickling, tickling fear on the back of his neck. Frank’s _friend_ is standing there in the shitty light, hands in his pockets and sharp smile on his face and Kohe feels trapped, cornered and backed against a wall even though he could just push past the man.

The man whose name he doesn’t know, whose face he can’t exactly place, the features are always so common and hard to pin down. Kohe feels his blood run cold when he realises he still can’t place the man in his head, he doesn’t know what this man looks like even when he’s standing right here in front of him. He has dark hair, he’s handsome, he’s…tall, he’s…, he’s.

“I mean, I understand part of it,” the man says and his voice is hard to place too, it’s deep, no it’s not, it’s smooth, no it’s husky, it’s pleasant to listen to you but it sounds nice the same way glass breaking sounds nice. Kohe doesn’t know what to do, he feels like he can’t run, well he coul physically run but this…thing would snatch him back before he made it two steps. The handle of his knife is slippery in his clammy hand but he can get a good grip on it, he could use it but what good would it to against this creature?

“You look like me, a little. You’re a pussy though, maybe he likes that,” the thing says and was the alley always this dark? No, no it wasn’t, Kohe takes a step to the side and the thing copies him, mocks him. He could stab it in the shoulder, it’s close enough, and he could run to the nearest apartment before it chases after him. He could pound on their door until someone let him in but what then?

He doesn’t think this thing cares about any of that, and Kohe doesn’t know why it’s so easy to think ‘it’ instead of ‘him’ when he looks at the creature that’s been Frank’s friend for the last two weeks. Two weeks with this thing in their apartment, touching Frank… _touching_ Frank.

“You did it,” he says and he doesn’t stutter for the first time in two years maybe. It isn’t hard to get the knife open in his pocket, it doesn’t make a sound he can hear but the thing tilts its head down.

“Did what? Make him remember how it felt to die? Remind him that no one cares whether he lives or dies? No one except me?” Frank’s Dark God sneers and the human face slips away, no- _melts_. The flesh melts away like it’s being burnt off the bone and Kohe wants to throw up then and there, there’s no blood but that makes it **_worse_**. There’s nothing but slippery, slick shadows dancing around the creature with a face that’s human in a way that’s sickening and globs of human flesh hitting the dirty ground of the alley and **_sizzling_**.

He hears it sizzling and he watches as the face he couldn’t place forms into something he still can’t place but this one isn’t human. When Frank’s Dark God smiles there are too many rows of teeth, when he blinks painted lids there are no eyes and when it speaks it doesn’t use any language Kohe has ever heard but the meaning is clear as day.

“ _I made him, I used him. He was the dumbass stupid enough to think I could love him and I think it’s time I took back my_ -”

Kohe doesn’t know where he gets the courage but it doesn’t even matter because he’s lunging before he can stop himself. He doesn’t fight, he’s always preferred to run but there isn’t a chance in hell he’s going anywhere, but he still doesn’t fight so the punch is shaky. He doesn’t fight so he doesn’t know how to bring his fist up from his waist and he doesn’t fight so he doesn’t know how to lock his wrist but he’s still punching this damn thing in the fucking face.

He also doesn’t know that face punches aren’t the most effective until he feels his knuckles splitting open and his hand feels like it’s burning but he doesn’t care, he doesn’t give a single fuck! He can’t let this thing come back and take Frank, he can’t let Frank be lied to again, he can’t let Frank get left for dead again. If he has to fight some kind of Dark God then fuck it, he’ll fight a Dark God.

The thing has a nasty left hook though and Kohe spits blood when something hits his throat so hard he sees stars; he isn’t even sure it’s a fist because his throat feels like it’s been _slit_. He smacks into the dumpster but he’s alive, he’s awake and somehow he’s had worse than this because this pain is burning and sharp, he’s used to cold and aching.  

He stays leaning against the dumpster though, pretends that he’s too stunned to move and lets the thing get close, enough to feel cold breath creeping along his cheek. His head is still spinning when he tackles the thing to the ground, wraps both arms around its waist and uses all of strength and all of his weight to take them both down. Kohe’s on top when they fall, somehow he’s on top but he feels cold things tearing at his legs, trying to get him off.

He knows the only reason the creature goes down is because he’s so surprised, Kohe doesn’t think he can win this fight, he knows he can’t but he doesn’t have to.

He doesn’t have to win the fight because he just wants this piece of shit “God” to know taking Frank won’t be easy. He gets in another lucky punch to the thing’s ribs, feels something crack and knows it’s probably his own bones but he does it again, he does it until his hand with wet with his own blood. He punches as hard as he can, biting his own tongue to keep himself quiet, he’s not going to let this thing have the satisfaction of hearing him in pain.

He slips the knife out of his pocket, feels it slip from his grip and closes his hand around the blade. Kohe spits more blood when Frank’s Dark God hits him across the face, he sees black and all he can see are rows and rows of wickedly sharp teeth but no, if he passes out, he’s dead.

Later, he won’t be able to say how he straddled it and slipped the knife between the thing’s ribs only that he did. Later he won’t know how he managed to grab the black suit that felt like water slipping out of his grip or how he used to lift the fucker up and slam him back down against the ground. He won’t know how he did it again, and _again_ , and **_again_** , until his arms burned with the effort of lifting up the dead weight and slamming it back down.

He feels his wrist turning as he twists the knife hard, feels the flesh give under the blade but it’s still a fight to make it move. Another thing he won’t understand later is how he kept twisting the knife until Frank’s Dark God growled in pain because his own wrist aches and his cut up fingers hurt.

Kohe knows he’s doing it in the moment and he’ll know how that he did it later but he won’t know **_how_** because he isn’t thinking about the fight. He isn’t thinking about how to make this thing scream, he isn’t thinking about the invisible cords wrapping around his chest and squeezing. He isn’t thinking about himself because the only thing on his mind is Frank.

He’s thinking about Frank bleeding on an abandoned rooftop. He’s thinking about Frank smoking a cigarette against the kitchen counter. He’s thinking about Frank on a swing set wondering about who is. He’s thinking about Frank, covered in his own blood, slumped against the cabinets and two laughs away from crying.

 _“He’s mine, Kohe, I created him_ ,” Frank’s Dark God hisses, words twisting like snakes and Kohe twists the knife. He twists the knife even though it hurts to fight through that tough skin, he does it because he wants his words to mean something.

“Fight you for him,” he whispers, breathing hard and harsh through his nose. He’s not smiling down at the thing underneath him, he’s not showing his bared teeth, he’s not a fighter and he isn’t sadistic.

He’s smelling blood instead, his own blood, he can taste it too, his throat hurts and his ears are ringing but he’s still conscious. He can smell something rancid, like burning rubber, but he doesn’t care about that because the thing underneath him isn’t moving anymore and the cords over his chest are gone. It isn’t smiling or smirking or sneering, it’s just, it’s staring, blinking up at Kohe with empty eyes and Kohe can’t-

He pushes himself to his feet, aching like he’s run ten marathons, and he takes his knife with him. He winces as the wet noise it makes, the ‘ _schlup’_ noise as it comes free of the burning cold flesh and he flinches at the pained, angry sound the creature makes, like an animal, not human. He staggers out of the alley, leaning against the wall to make sure he doesn’t fall and doesn’t look back, he doesn’t need to.

He knows he just gave Frank’s Dark God something to think about, an unknown factor to consider in the sick game it’s playing. He also knows that he needs to wrap his split, bleeding knuckles and that he needs to put ice on his aching face but that’s a problem for later.

Kohe slips his bloodied knife back into his pocket, he puts up his hood and stumbles off into the night and he lets himself smile, just one little smile because he isn’t a sadist. Frank is his friend, he _loves_ Frank, and he just proved it to something less than human. Wow.


	11. What I want for once

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and if they both want it well, two birds one fucking stone.

[Everything’s been fuzzy for so long,](http://vocaroo.com/i/s1CTIkfB3L22) I haven’t been able to think, sleep, eat. Every time I try to do anything, I think about him. The man, the nameless fucker who keeps coming back even though we never fuck and I know I never ask him to come back. I don’t even know how he gets in the apartment sometimes, I don’t know how a lot of shit happens anymore.

Kohe’s. We don’t speak much anymore, me and Kohe, I don’t know why. He goes out on the rooftop and he smokes, and smokes and smokes, he smokes half a pack, sometimes he smokes the whole pack without realising. He doesn’t know that I follow him, I don’t know how I follow him because everything is so hazy, like the smoke he breathes out. He’s the only solid thing I have left but he moves so fast sometimes that I’m left panting in his wake.

Sometimes I think he’s going to say something to me, he opens his mouth and he ducks his head, and I stare at his lips. His pretty pink lips, the ones that pucker around his cigs and purse so nice when he blows smoke ring after smoke ring into the wind…

I think he’s mad at me but I don’t know. I know he thinks I went through his shit, dug through his room until I found his violin case but I didn’t, I know I didn’t, I didn’t even open the case even though I know the instrument inside is more expensive than anything else in this apartment. I want to make it right but I don’t know how and every time I think I’m clear headed enough to start, **_he_** shows up and it starts all over again.

I know it can’t be more than a couple weeks but it feels like years since I’ve been able to think straight. I want to be able to start a sentence and get to the end without drifting off, I want to be able to think about the here and now and not the years I spent as Chin Chin’s little play thing, his attack dog. I want to think about Kohe and his hands and how they’re shaking more and more as winter sets in but I’m shivering in an alleyway, stuck leaning against a disgusting dumpster and I don’t know how to get away.

I don’t know where he is tonight, Kohe, he doesn’t have work I think but what do I know these days? I try to shake a smoke out of my pack but my hands are shaking too much and they end up spilling all over the floor, I try to catch them and they all slip through my fingers. I want to scream, to punch the linoleum counter, but the sound gets lost somewhere between my brain and my mouth and my hands can barely form a proper fist. I’m tired in a way that feels familiar but I can’t think, can’t remember.

I want to throw up, I want to wrap my hands around my chest and rock myself like a child.

The cigarettes are all over the floor and I’m leaning against the counter, fingers curled around the edge to keep my grounded. I think pain would help, something sharp like getting caught on barbed wire, I’ve done that, back in my realm. I remember the ripping, old barbed wire was a bitch to get out of skin and I remember leaving some of arms on it back in my realm.

I’m shaking like a druggie going into withdrawal and I think pain would help, something burning like stamping out a fire with my own foot; I did that back in my old realm once. I remember the white hot pain of it, fire was warmth but it attracted damn near everything to you and I remember having to rip my shirt to wrap my leg.

The temperature drops and my breath drops with it, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe. I’m hunched over myself, scratching at my own face, my arms but I can’t breathe, I’m hyperventilating and I can’t fucking breathe. I barely even feel it when I drop to my kneels even though it should hurt like a bitch, I barely feel the welts my nails are leaving because I can’t breathe.

“ _You think you can stay here.”_

I’m gasping for breath, slapping a hand over my nose and mouth because I can’t keep hyperventilating in this fucker’s presence. Chin Chin, I can’t be that vulnerable around him, so even if I can’t breathe, I stop myself from trying.

His steps are unsteady, the sound unsteady, one leg is dragging and the other is hitting the tile too hard. Every step shakes the entire apartment, I can hear the plates rattling away on the shelves and I know no one outside of the apartment feels it. I dig my nails in deep, I feel them but the pain is still far away and my lungs are ready to burst but I still can’t keep my breathing regular; I move my hand the slightest bit and take one ragged breath.

I see his feet, one is dragging, and there’s something dripping onto the floor.

“ _You can’t, you don’t **belong** here_ ,” Chin Chin hisses at me but I refuse to look at his face, I can’t breathe and I’m weak, I’m a shadow but I refuse to look into his fucking face. I refuse to use these God forsaken eyes he gave me to look up at him, how many times has he used my eyes to look at himself? How many times has he stolen chromosomes from me while I was caught up in his spell?

…

“Fucker,” I rasp, I gasp, I grind out like the death rattle it feels like. My hands are shaking, I’m covered in sweat and I feel so shaky I can’t stand but I’m so angry, I’m fucking furious. Chin Chin left me for dead and when I just now get my life under me, he’s fucking back like a cancer in my very bones. He’s a sickness, he’s a disease and knowing it doesn’t make it hurt any less, I welcomed him, I asked for this.

“F-fu-fuck y-you-you!” I hiss, mutter, growl, I can barely bite off the words between my chattering, clattering teeth but I manage. I can breathe, almost, short and sharp and angry, I sound like a dog, ready to bite the hand that feeds only this hand has only ever fed me poison.  

“ _He only wants you for now, you’re the shiny new toy fuck face_ ,” Chin Chin snarls, voice so deep it shakes me to the core, makes my heart skip and my bones _ache_ in a way I can barely remember. I can barely remember…barely…

“You! You’ve beeeeen s-st-stealing from me!” I stutter, stammer, spit at him and I can’t keep looking at the dark tiles, I can’t keep my hand over my mouth, muffling my own voice because it’s what he wants. He wanted me broken and needy and desperate, he wanted he little lap dog back and how better than to break it back down? He wanted to play it all over again, he wanted to be the creature in the night, the one with the glowing red eyes again, the one with the food again.

He wanted to hold out his hand to me, to offer love instead of food, sublime words instead of water. He wanted to trick my into another deal with him, he wants to trick me into another deal with him and he thinks this is how he can do it.

I rip the glasses off my face, the plastic ones he gave me and this fucker! I haven’t been wearing the ones Kohe gave me, I haven’t been, I haven’t.

“No. No! I’m not yours!” I’m roaring, screaming, yelling in a voice that’s hoarse, in a voice that’s so emotional it’s almost dead. I’m pushing myself to my feet by sheer fury alone, I’m tearing at these eyes he gave me and I’m staring him dead in the face.

…

“What did you do?” I whisper, taken back, breathless again but this time it isn’t panic for myself, it isn’t physical, it’s.

There’s purple-black blood smeared on Chin Chin’s cheekbone, it’s dribbling out slowly and not clotting and I’ve never seen his blood before. I’m almost transfixed, I’m staring at him and I’m, who did this?

Then I see the red blood, it’s dark, and with my shadowed eyes I shouldn’t be able to see the colour but phantom red is there, superimposed. It’s there, on his cheek, smeared over the flesh and I don’t know how I can tell what’s his blood and what isn’t. I stumble back a step and I see him clutching his side, just at the fourth and fifth ribs, and that was what was falling on the tiles; this Dark God’s cursed blood.

“What the fuck did you do?” I’m screaming, I’m delirious, I’m fucking out of my mind because I’m the shadow, I’m not the strong one, but I’m hysterical. I grab him by the shoulders and I shake him, I shake him as hard as I can and he winces, he hisses but says nothing; he doesn’t smile.

“ _I could banish him, I could hold him there until you came back to me. Yourself for him.”_

I don’t stop shaking him, I dig my fingers into his flesh and this is probably the first time a servant of his has turned on him. He’s got his natural defences, cold, shadow, but I’m too used to it and he’s too fucked up to shove me off. I hook my leg around his and we both go falling but I know how to land on him, of course I do, haven’t we done something like this before?

He falls and I make sure my weight falls on his ribs, the same spot that’s drooling blood. I don’t know how I know but Kohe did this; I know he did and I don’t even think about how he did it. Chin Chin blinks up at me, empty sockets wide and even with no eyes to read, I know he’s confused, he’s so confused. He doesn’t know why this isn’t working, he doesn’t know how I could say no to him. He doesn’t know how a mortal could fight him.

“If you try, I’ll fight you until I die, then I’ll come back, again and again and again. I’ll find the peace^lords and help them find you. If you touch him, I’ll **_condemn_** you,” I promise, swear, whisper. He doesn’t say anything, for the first time, he says nothing, he just lays there and bleeds.

He doesn’t have chromosomes, he doesn’t have servants, he’s desperate but I’m not his fucking dog anymore. He left me, he could’ve taken me with him but he didn’t and he broke our deal, he didn’t deliver and I have nothing left for him.

“ _Ore wa ochinchin ga daisuki nandayo_.”

* * *

I’m still on the floor when the door opens again but I know who it is this time. I’m still shaking, my breathing’s still wild and lost and gone but I’m alive, he’s alive and I just threatened a Falling God.

“B-back in Japan, muh-my father dishonoured the wrong p-p-people and they killed him. They t-t-took me in and I dishonoured them t-t-too. I pl-ayed for people I s-shu-shouldn’t have and t-they took my muh-music,” Kohe says quietly and he looks like shit. The knuckles on his right hand are split open, raw and sticky, painful; there’s bruising on his throat and I wonder how he can speak still. He smiles and I see the edge of a black eye, he smiles and shows off split lips, I take a step towards him and stop.

“I come from a ruined realm, I don’t what happened but it’s where I grew up and lived. Chin Chin found me and promised everything I could ever want. I…sacrificed for him and I did it because I loved him. He took my eyes,” I add, tilting until my face is in the light and there’s no chance of him not seeing.

He doesn’t gasp, he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even take a step back and say anything. Kohe stares at my ruined eyes, at the delicate scars on the sides of my face from gauging out my own damn eyes and he…he smiles. He closes the distance between us, he lifts a hand and rest it on my cheek, finger tips stroking over the scars. This hand is bleeding too, the inside of the finger’s slit like they held a knife being pulled out of their grip.

“I f-f-fought your Dark God Frank,” Kohe whispers and he’s so warm, I thought he would be cold since he’s trying to get warm so much but he’s warm. He’s warm and he isn’t wearing his gloves, I can feel the scars on his palm, I can feel the too short finger where there’s something missing.

“I saw, he came by beat to shit,” I breathe, hardly daring too in case it shatters whatever is going on, I almost hold my breath because I don’t want this breaking and floating away like a spider’s web.

Kohe moves first, tilting his head, ducking until our lips are almost touching and I can feel his breath fanning across my lips, hot and hesitant like he doesn’t want to ruin this either.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks, so quietly I feel the words more than hear them and the answer is automatic, barely asks my brain before it’s out my mouth.

“ ** _please_**.”

His lips are soft, so soft and he kisses like he speaks, hesitantly but with purpose, so much purpose, every single move deliberate and meaning so much. I let him do whatever he wants because this is more than enough for me, to feel him, to have him here and know he’s doing this because he _wants_ to; he wants **_me_**.

He sighs against my mouth and coaxes my lips open, breathing in and stealing the oxygen from my very blood, that’s the only explanation for my I feel like I’m floating away. He tastes like rust and copper, the blood in his mouth, but I don’t care. I moan into his mouth and he swallows it up, chasing after more with his tongue, sucking on mine to eek just a few more noises from me and how can I deny him anything?

He _fought_ a Dark God for me. He slid a knife up between a shadow creature’s ribs and twisted. He wants me.

I moan again, I whimper into his mouth and melt because he’s so good, so careful and thorough and gentle. He wants me, he wants me, and I can have him.

When he breaks the kiss I follow after his lips, eyes half lidded because I can barely see his face. I blink and he’s brushing the hair from his eyes, I love those eyes…I-I love. I love him.

“What colour are your eyes?” I ask because I need to know, I have to know.

“Brown,” he tells me, ducking his head for another kiss. We’re both messed up, he’s bloody and I’m shaking but it doesn’t matter right now because he’s kissing me again. He needs to get his knuckles wrapped and pop a few painkillers and I need to sit down before I collapse but that doesn’t matter because I’m kissing him; because I _want_ to kiss him.


	12. Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lost, Condemned, Found and Saved.
> 
> Safari Man is alive.

He doesn’t know where he is, what realm, which part of the omniverse. He thinks he may be dead but he isn’t sure, the dead don’t feel pain he thinks so where does that leave his aching body? Maybe he’s in hell, where the soul is tormented for the rest of eternity, maybe he’s in some abandoned realm filled with poison gas.

He sees nothing; blackness. He hears nothing; hissing and voices too deep to understand. He feels nothing; constant throbbing pain. He tastes nothing; blood in his mouth. He smells nothing; sulphur and burning. He thinks of nothing; Pink Guy, Frank, Salamander Man, his friends. He is nothing; suffering.

Safari Man wonders if his friends miss him, if they are alive right now. Chin Chin was powerful, too powerful, and Frank didn’t have all of his friends with him anymore. Safari Man wonders if they miss him, if they can see all the creatures Chin Chin is sending to fight them. Safari man wonders if they miss him, if they remember to lock the door behind them when they come into the apartment.

This realm is dark, it’s lonely, it’s echoing and deafening. He can feel his body, every inch of it but he can’t move, he thinks the last thing he felt before the pain was Pink Guy. The Condemned live here or exist here, he doesn’t think anything can live here, not even thoughts. He thinks they’re close by sometimes, walking by him, chanting with voices he can’t hear or understand. He thinks other things exist here too but he can’t be sure, he’s blind, deaf, mute, dumb and dead.

“Safari Man!”

He can’t hear anything and he wonders if he ever could hear anything, what was sound?

“Safari Man!”

He can’t see anything and he wonders why there’s something on his face, glasses? Why would he need those if he can’t see anything?

“Safari Man! Holy fuck.”

He thinks something is near him and he wants to reach out but he doesn’t know how to, his skin feels full of prickles and pain but he can’t remember how to make anything move. He thinks he’s on his back, maybe, but he isn’t sure.

“Shit, shit, shit, fuck! We’re getting the fuck out of here,”…someone says and the voice is familiar, he thinks it’s familiar. Safari Man can’t think of where he’s heard this voice before, someone familiar, someone he likes and knows, his friend?

“Grab my shoulder,” the person tells him and Safari Man thinks the person is lifting him, he thinks he can feel something under his hand. He gasps, fights to breathe and feels the air rattle in his chest, his aching chest and he thinks he’s alive.

“Fucking say something,” the person hisses and air feathers across his…face, his face. He thinks he can smell cinnamon, sharply sweet and cloying but it’s not, not exactly. He thinks he can hear screaming, roaring on a frequency that shakes his bones but he’s not sure.

Moving, he feels like he’s moving, feels every jolting step and hears every puff of breath that’s not his. The noise is loud, louder, he can’t think over the noise but he knows he’s moving now, he can feel himself moving away, away, away. He can feel himself slipping away, away, away; asleep.

* * *

He wakes with a start and a shout; he wakes up on a couch.

“Calm your shit,” the voice, the familiar voice, shouts but Safari Man scrambles up, tries to push himself up to sit. Everything aches, _his finger nails ache_ , but he can think, he can see, he can breathe as deep as his throbbing ribs let him and smell nothing but something almost floral.

Safari Man shakes his dizzy head and blinks hard because everything’s blurred, he can see vague shapes but nothing distinct and thinks he’s half blind. A hand rests on his shoulder, holding him in place, and another one pushes something onto his face and he can see again.

He sees off white walls with strange stains, he sees a dingy couch and a television that looks like it came from the fifties complete with antenna. He looks around himself and sees a kitchen with a wooden table and too many cabinets, he sees a door with scratches all along the bottom. He sees Frank but it’s not Frank and now he knows why Chin Chin kidnapped him.

“ _You’re not Frank_ ,” he says bluntly because this creature is not, Safari Man can see it plain as day but no one else would have known. This one has shadows crawling over him, this one has eyes that pulse with dark power and shine with rot and not even the shades he’s wearing can hide it not from Safari Man at least. There was a reason he travelled after all, searching high and low for all the strange creatures of this omniverse with the eyes that let him see them in all their glory.

“ _You’re Chin Chin’s_ ,” he adds when the not-Frank shifts uncomfortably then stills completely at the mention his master. Safari Man wonders what Chin Chin wants from him now, what more does he have to give after all his chromosomes were taken? He thinks of his eyes for a split second, feels his stomach drop out of his body but that can’t be it, Chin Chin can’t use his eyes because that’s not how it works.

“I was, he abandoned me,” the not-Frank explains and he tries for nonchalance but fails miserably, the bitterness and regret are thick on his tongue and colour his words. Safari Man doesn’t know who this is, he’d been stolen away in the middle of a trek and he hadn’t even known about Frank’s exile. He hadn’t known a single thing about the show or the war brewing until Chin Chin showed up demanding chromosomes.

Safari Man had been trapped in the forest for so long, searching for a way out and finding nothing. He’d tried so hard to get out and when he’d been condemned there hadn’t been any point, he’d swapped one prison for another and what was the point of trying to escape? He’d seen Pink Guy for a split second, for precious few seconds then he was sprawled out on the ground in the leaves, staring up at the blue, blue sky.

“ _What do you want with me_?” he asks even though his tongue is heavy and his teeth clack together awkwardly. His jaw pops when he opens his mouth too much and his throat is dry, cracking with the effort of speaking, it’s been so long. So long of darkness and nothing. He shivers at the memories of nothingness, of detachment and dissociation and wonders if he’ll ever forget them.

“I wasn’t looking for you, I thought you were dead,” not-Frank explains and Safari Man nods along with him because he thought he was dead too. He thought he was cursed to suffer, suffer, suffer, but now he’s here sitting on a shitty couch with a man he’s never met but has to trust in an apartment he doesn’t know. He wonders if there’s any alcohol around, he feels like he needs to be drunk or tipsy or not as clear headed as he is right now.

“Chin Chin talked about you though and Pink Guy missed you so I knew who you were. I can take you back to them and the Real Frank is here now,” not-Frank adds and there’s less bitterness here, almost acceptance. Safari Man won’t pretend that he knows what’s going on here, he doesn’t know why Chin Chin would leave something like this not-Frank behind and he doesn’t know why this not-Frank is helping him. He doesn’t even know which realm he’s in but he doesn’t think he has much choice but to trust this not-Frank, at least for now.

“ _Got any fucking alcohol?”_ he asks because he really does need the alcohol if he’s going to get the whole story of what’s been going on while he was gone. The not-Frank looks at him for a second, maybe trying to figure out if alcohol would actually kill him dead before getting up and heading for one of the doors and not the kitchen. He can understand that, why keep the good shit in the kitchen so far away? Keep it in the bedroom, maybe under a pillow so you could chug that shit in the middle of the night.

He waits while the not-Frank gets the good shit, stretches out his arms in front of him and scrunches his nose at how pale they look, and how thin. The bones of his wrists stick out of the skin and his knuckles look so sharp he half expects them to split through the flesh when he curls his fingers into a fist. His shirt is faded and his hat has a hole in it, a lot of holes, but he’s alive and if he can get back to Frank, he can get new shirts from his stash.

If he can get back to Frank, he can go back to the life he remembers, he can be with his friends and they can go back to nearly being kicked out of the apartment every other week. They can start grease fires and try to put them out with water, they can fight over who was the most obnoxious and who slept where. They can make the show again and teach the internet naughty things in Japanese, just like old times.

“W-who are you?”

Safari Man takes his time turning to the new voice and then his breath catches because there’s a very pretty man standing in the doorway. He can see this one is human, barely, but human nonetheless and peering at him from under dark bangs. He can see the brown eyes darting from himself to the door and back, he can even see the tiny twitch in the man’s jaw as he tries to work out something to say.

“ _I’m his friend_ ,” Safari Man finally says, pointing behind himself where the door should be and where Frank is. He wonders if this is Frank’s boyfriend which is fucking gay but at least he’s cute, very cute, and shy. He can see the way every muscle is poised to move, to run maybe, or attack and that’s interesting, especially when he sees the bulge of a knife in the man’s hoodie pocket.

“ _You’re here to take him?”_ the man spits and it’s in perfect Japanese, aggressive Japanese even though the voice is soft there’s real menace in it. Safari Man wonders how long these two have been fighting off Chin Chin’s henchmen for the man to react like this, so viciously, so immediately. He thinks the not-Frank is pretty lucky to have found someone as completely loyal as this man standing in front of him, the one with his hair in his face as a buffer to the world and his fingers curled around a weapon.

Safari Man wonders if not-Frank knows how much this one loves him, he thinks yes but he could be wrong, he probably isn’t. He sees more than most people, he sees the things people try to hide _because_ they’re trying to hide them but he doesn’t think this man is trying to hide anything. He sees a clear possessiveness for not-Frank, the mere thought of someone taking the doppelganger away has this person on edge and ready to fight.

“ _No, he saved me, and he’s bringing me alcohol_ ,” Safari Man answers finally because he almost forgot he had to and his voice is scratchy too. He wonders how long it will take to get his body back under his control or how long until he remembers how to use it, he hopes not long.

“ _I pushed the last one who tried to take him off the fire escape so it’s good to know he has the friends_ ,” the man says so smoothly he almost misses the threat there. Safari Man smiles, feels his lips stretch in a way that’s almost painful until he’s grinning at this strange man standing by the door.

“Here, I even have fruity shit for cocktail-hi Kohe,” not-Frank breaks off and Safari Man grins wider, not even sure how he does it but he manages. He can hear the fondness in not-Frank’s voice so strong he doesn’t even need to turn around to see it on his face because it’s so obvious. Safari Man doesn’t know either of these people even if one did save his life, he doesn’t know how they met, how long they’ve known each other or any of the contextual things but he doesn’t think he needs to.

He doesn’t need to if this Kohe’s first words to strangers are threats on not-Frank’s behalf and he doesn’t need context if not-Frank’s voice drops from the smoker rasp to something smooth and soft when he sees this Kohe. Safari Man is highly adept at seeing the unspoken and hidden, even after being exiled to a hell fire realm for who knew how long, but he doesn’t even need it to see what’s between these two.

They’ve very obvious and very gay, he wonders what the real Frank would think- _will_ think when Safari Man tells him about it.

“ _Can you stop eye fucking and give me the whiskey_?” he asks because he’ll tell Frank _later_ , he wants to get drunk **_now_**.


End file.
